How to Grow Cilantro: Work With the Bolt, Not Against It

GardenDraft Team · May 9, 2026 · 5 min read

Part of: Garden Planning Guides · How to Grow Vegetables — Crop Guides A–Z

Cilantro is the herb people most often think they're failing at, when really they're just fighting its nature. It bolts (shoots up a flower stalk and stops making leaves) fast, especially in heat. Once you stop treating that as a problem to prevent and start planning around it, cilantro becomes one of the easiest things in the garden: cheap, quick, and happy to reseed itself for free.

Grow cilantro cool, not warm

Cilantro is a cool-season crop, full stop. It does its best leafy growth in the mild weather of spring and fall, and the long days and heat of summer are exactly what trigger it to bolt. So sow it early in spring as soon as the soil can be worked, and again in late summer for a fall flush — not in the heat of June and July, when it will flower before you've cut much. In mild-winter regions it will grow happily right through the cool months. Give it full sun in spring and fall, but a spot with afternoon shade buys you a little more leaf time as things warm up.

Direct-sow and succession-sow

Cilantro has a taproot and resents being transplanted, so direct-sow it where it will grow, about a quarter to half an inch deep. The seed you plant is actually coriander — each round "seed" holds two, so thin seedlings to a few inches apart once they're up. Because any single sowing bolts within a few weeks, the trick to a steady supply is succession planting: scatter a fresh short row every two to three weeks rather than one big patch you can't keep up with. A pinch every couple of weeks keeps the kitchen stocked far better than a single spring planting ever will.

When it bolts, lean in

Bolting is just the plant doing what it's built to do when summer heat arrives. When a plant sends up its lacy flower stalk, you have three good options, and you can take all of them: let some flowers open to feed hoverflies and other beneficial insects, let the flowers dry into coriander seed to harvest for the spice rack, and let a few heads drop where they stand so the patch self-sows a free fall crop. If you want to delay bolting at the margins, keep plants evenly watered and reach for a slow-bolt variety bred for heat tolerance.

Harvest from the outside

Pick the outer, mature leaves first and let the center keep growing, cutting no more than about a third of the plant at once. The flat, broad young leaves are the ones you want for cooking; the ferny, divided leaves that appear as the plant prepares to bolt are milder and a sign the clock is running out. Cilantro pairs naturally in the bed and the kitchen with tomatoes and peppers. Dial in your spring and fall sowing windows on the planting calendar.