Cilantro Cover Crop

Cilantro makes a great winter cover crop in our lush nook of the maritime Pacific Northwest, where the winters are mild, and the coffee is strong. Last Fall we tried four different sowings, starting early and ending in late november.

We bought coriander seed in bulk at our local food co-op, so that we could afford to sow it thickly. The cilantro kept the weeds suppressed until spring when we ended up weeding the beds when they had overtaken our crop. We could have weeded earlier, but pulling weeds when wet winters tends to get soil on the leaves, and our weeders are less likely to work in the damp and cold.

Most of the winter we harvested our cilantro with scissors when it was not much taller than three inches. As the winter turned darker and colder, we harvested shorter and shorter plants, until we were down to the nubbins. (By the way smaller, younger plants are more resistant to cold damage.) Our weed infestation was an unintended consequence of clear-cutting our cilantro crop.

We will yank out the cilantro whenever we need the space for another crop, but we’ll leave a patch to flower and go to seed. You can eat the flowers, and the seeds while they are still green. Harvest the seeds when they are still green for drying.

The flowers attract a prodigious number of pollinators; the air literally vibrates with their hum as they suck the nectar from countless tiny florets. Most insects that are predators of other insects spend a portion of their life sipping nectar. Attracting a wide range of pollinators is important component of a healthy ecosystem in the vegetable garden.

Best of all cilantro doesn’t fix nitrogen. When it comes to cover crops, most gardeners have a nitrogen fixation. Using cover crops to add nitrogen is a good idea for large scale agriculture, but it makes less sense in home garden. Most home gardeners can get more nitrogen they can use. by saving their pee, diluting it ten to one and applying it as a liquid fertilizer. It’s odor-free and sterile unless you let it sit around and ferment. During WWII they used it to clean wounds in England.

The real purpose of cover crops is to maximize the production of organic matter in your garden, and to keep weeds down by filling in the empty spaces. Cilantro can also perform this function as weed in your garden. Let a small patch go to seed, save some for next year, and spread the rest around to become one of next year’s weeds.