Cilantro has very short life span and if you want to increase then do the regular harvesting. It is a herb and used for cooking and garnish. Mexican and South Asian people love to have cilantro in their foods. Home gardening can be started with this as its very fast growing crop.
Here is the complete guide: How to grow cilantro
Harvesting cilantro
When it comes to how to harvest cilantro, then its really simple. The top one-third part of the plant is the harvesting area you need to cut. And the two-third of the remaining bottom part then grows new leaves. And this process goes on. But if you do not harvest, then plant will start bolting and then there will be no leaves for cooking.
Bolting is the process of producing stems for flowers which later produce the seeds. When bolting process starts then plants focus on it and leaves does not grow properly of if they grow a bit, they don’t have the taste.
When to harvest cilantro?
After planting the seeds, it takes almost 70 days to get 6 inches height. On that stage it becomes mature for the first cutting.
Although it depends on the plant growth, but at least you should harvest cilantro plant once a week. But if its growing rapidly then you can harvest even early.
Most of the people only harvest the cilantro when they need to cook. This is main reason that the plants comes to end. But instead of this, you should harvest them all on weekly basis and then store the cilantro leaves to use them later.
Read complete guide: Methods of storing cilantro by Freezing
That was all for the cooking purpose, but what if you want the seeds from the plants. For that you should leave the plants until they get bolting. And then they will start producing seeds. When the plant turn its color to brown then you should harvest the seeds with their stems.
I suggest you to always harvest and use the fresh cilantro because the dry cilantro seeds loses its taste. That’s why its the best herb to grow at home under your hands.
