The lifecycle of Coriander

Coriander is one of the most famous herbs in my part of the country. Every item that is on menu for lunch(maybe except plain rice)will be added with a modest amount of fresh coriander in the end just before taking the completed dish off the stove. This is mainly to retain the freshness of the herb at the same to imbibe its aroma in the dish. Even though the coriander leaves are available for very reasonable price in the market, nothing could compare the aroma of the home grown coriander leaves. Along with the leaves, we use the seeds as well, predominately in the non-vegetarian & tamarind based curries that we make. So of course our kitchen garden had to have a slot for growing coriander. Instead of growing them only for their leaves, we let few plants grow to full maturity till the stage of producing seeds to collect the coriander seeds.

I was all the more enthusiastic to witness its full growth lifecycle for the first time.Here is a series of pictures showing its development.

The seed germination is pretty quick in hot climate regions. 

Appearance of the first true leaves

Slowly they grow bigger in size giving out branches. At this stage the leaves are mostly plucked to use in the kitchen.

But if left to remain on plant, the leaves turn quiet stringy slowly giving out white flowers in clusters

And gradually these flowers start producing tiny green seeds. Look closely to find them

As the seeds grow big the flower turn into a beige kind of color and slowly wither off

Note, at this stage the stringy leaves resembles the carrot foliage closely,confirming that the fact that these two belong to the same family

Seeds fully grown but not matured yet. They have a shiny green color at this stage

Seeds up close .. slowly the green color fades and changes to a brown shade

It is best to let the seeds turn brown in the plant and then be removed to dry completely in the sun

Completely dried seeds ready to be used in kitchen or to be planted for the next batch of coriander leaves

Though the seed amount is very less, the aroma it gives out is quite strong confirming the fact again that home grown kitchen ingredients are priceless and peerless.