Coriander is renowned in gardening circles for being notoriously tricky to grow.
This is often due to the seeds not germinating, and those seedlings that do grow tend to bolt to seed before a good crop of this fragrant, culinary herb can be harvested.
While a large number of herb seeds grow quite happily just thrown into a hydroponics system, coriander, it seems, does not.
The seeds don't like to be too wet or too dry. The soil level needs to be adequate. The water temperature needs to be just right. You get the idea...
Not only does coriander taste great (to those of us that love it!). The vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants in coriander also provide significant health benefits. Coriander leaves and seeds are full of vitamin K, which plays an important role in helping your blood clot. Vitamin K also helps your bones repair themselves, helping prevent problems like osteoporosis
Having had good success growing coriander seeds in our Garden Gizmo previously, we decided to do a bit of an experiment to determine the ultimate method for successfully growing a bountiful crop of hydroponic coriander.
For a fairer experiment we planted Garden Gizmo coriander seeds and coriander seeds saved from previous plants to see what happened. Interestingly both seeds grew equally well.
Here's what we did:
- Plant into Jiffy / peat type pods - we assume this.
- Fill the Jiffy pods right up with coco/perlite grow medium.
- Plant 5 or 6 seeds in each pod - to maximise your chance of success. You can always thin out the seedlings if all the seeds germinate.
- Plant the seeds into 1 cm indents and loosely cover with grow medium.
- Cover the seeds with seed domes - this creates a more humid environment for the seeds to germinate - like a teeny tiny greenhouse.
- Add enough water to the grow deck to just touch the bottom of the JIFFY pods. We need the seeds to be damp but we don't want to drown them.
- Add the correct dilution of nutrients - weak dilution of Premium Plant Cuisine until the seeds germinate. Then increase the strength of the dilution as your seedlings grow and mature into big, leafy, healthy plants.
- Keep the grow light turned off for the first 12 hours to allow the seeds to adjust to their new environment.
- After this time move the light down as close as possible to your seeds and use the 16hour on and brightest light setting.
- Position your Garden Gizmo out of any cold drafts
- Keep the water level consistent
- Be patient - coriander seeds can take 2 weeks (or longer) to germinate depending on the room and water temperature.
This method gave us so much coriander we didn't know what to do with it! Thankfully we stumbled upon the idea to make a few batches of delicious falafels.
Still not having success with growing coriander seeds? Then switch to the 'instant garden' method and just plant reading grow seedlings into your Garden Gizmo.
Happy growing!
