Growing Coriander from the Supermarket (Keeping it Alive!)
This website is reader-supported - thank you! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
How to keep supermarket-bought coriander alive and producing tasty leaves. These plants are notoriously short-lived purchases, but if you use this technique, you can get several generous harvests. That can mean fresh herbs for weeks or months, saving you money!
You’re standing at the supermarket and deciding to get a bag of cut herbs or potted plants. Many of us choose potted plants because we hope to harvest from them a few times and keep the herbs fresher for a longer period. Unfortunately, once we buy those lush, green supermarket herb plants, they die within a couple of weeks. What went wrong? Is there some way to keep them alive?
Many people are unaware that supermarket herb plants are not grown in the same way as those found in garden centers. Also, each type of herb has a distinct natural lifespan. Some are perennial while others die after a season. Understanding this will help you to keep all of those plants growing for longer—some for years.
How to Grow Coriander
Coriander, commonly known as cilantro in North America, is one of the most popular herbs in the supermarket. It’s probably the most challenging to grow, though, as many have already found out. After bringing it home and that first cut of leaves, it can sulk, and whatever remains of the foliage fails to thrive. It looks terrible within a week or two, and eventually, you consign it to the compost pile. Despite previous attempts, there are a couple of simple things to keep your supermarket coriander alive long enough for a few good harvests.
The trick to growing coriander from the supermarket is understanding how the plant grows. Each seed will germinate in about one to three weeks with moderate light, warmth, and moisture. From that point, it typically takes around 50 to 60 days for the plant to reach maturity.
It also requires approximately two to four inches of space between itself and the next plant to thrive. Once the plants grow to about four to five inches tall, you can take several harvests of leaves. Either harvesting the entire plant (and killing it) or snipping a third of its foliage off from the top and allowing the plant to grow as cut-and-come-again.
When you plant supermarket coriander, keep this in mind. Coriander is also a cool-season plant and prefers growing in warm spring or autumn weather. If left to grow in direct, hot sunlight, coriander will bolt. That means it decides that it’s time to send up a tall flower spike, produce small white flowers, and then go to seed.
Coriander seeds can go on to create a new generation of coriander plants in the month or so that follows, or you could save them to use as a spice. After coriander produces seeds, the plant will die. It’s completed its life cycle.
Why Do Supermarket Herb Plants Die so Quickly?
While you can plant supermarket coriander, a closer examination of the “plant” will reveal a dirty little secret. In a typical pot, there are about a dozen small plants instead of just one! While you initially thought it looked healthy, you then realize that all of those tiny plants are vying for space, water, and nutrients. They’re pot-bound, stressed out, and all will die pretty quickly unless you give them what they need.
Other supermarket herb plants are the same. Each parsley plant can grow over a foot in diameter, yet there are usually half a dozen plants in each tiny pot. Basil is another one! I share how you can save a supermarket basil plant and grow dozens of big, healthy plants in another piece. That technique is different from growing coriander from the supermarket.
Mint is probably the easiest supermarket plant to grow, as are chives, sage, and rosemary. All you need to do with them is plant them in fresh potting mix in a much larger pot or container.
Can You Plant Supermarket Coriander Outside?
Though supermarket coriander (cilantro) is cramped and stressed in its pot, there’s a way to extend its life. Just as with other herb plants, you should repot it in a larger pot with fresh potting mix. After that, you’ll need to grow it at around room temperature or slightly warmer, ideally. Hot temperatures (above 75°F/24°C) and sun will increase the likelihood of it bolting.
Supermarket coriander is cultivated in large commercial greenhouses, where precise control over humidity, moisture, and light levels is maintained. The pots are then shipped to the grocery store, where the plants appear healthy but begin to suffer from the moment they arrive.
They are not accustomed to living in any environment other than consistently warm ones, so they will likely struggle to thrive if planted outside. While you can plant supermarket coriander outside, it won’t grow as well as if you keep it inside on a windowsill or in a warm greenhouse or conservatory. However, if it becomes too hot, dry, or grows in long daylight hours (more than 12 hours), it will bolt.
How to Keep Supermarket Coriander Alive
If you’ve re-potted supermarket coriander into a larger pot with fresh potting mix, you’re on an excellent path to keeping it alive. The plants, especially on the outer edges, will have more space to spread their roots. The new potting mix can also retain more water and nutrients, which are essential for healthy herbs. Especially delicate leafy greens.
Keep it well watered, and give it a diluted plant feed suitable for leafy green vegetables once a week. At the time of planting, also ensure that you remove one-third of all the upper foliage. This will provide the plants with more stability and reduce moisture loss due to transpiration. You can harvest a third of the foliage each week until the plant shows signs of bolting.
Grow Coriander from Seeds
Regardless of how you tend it, your supermarket coriander will only live for about a month before it begins to die or bolt. If you want a continuous supply of fresh coriander leaves, you’ll need to buy a new plant and repeat the process every month. Alternatively, buy a packet of seeds and grow your own! It’s very simple and can even be cheaper than repotting plants from the supermarket.
Starting coriander from seed allows you to make all the right decisions for your plant. You can choose to grow a variety such as ‘Calypso’, ‘Santo’, or ‘Slow Bolt’ to stop premature bolting. That helps you to grow coriander, even in summer. You can also grow the plants the correct distance apart or have a self-seeding coriander patch to keep the harvests going through spring, summer, and early autumn.
More Herb Growing Inspiration
Supermarket herbs are often the gateway to growing herbs from seed. They show you what a plant looks like growing in a pot, and you can learn how to care for them. However, herb plants can last longer and be much healthier if you start them from seed, both annuals and some perennials. You also get the choice of which varieties to grow! Here’s even more herb-growing inspiration to get you started
- How to Grow Supermarket Basil
- Grow Your Own Herbs in this DIY Herb Spiral
- Healing Herbs to Grow in a Salve Garden
Growing Coriander from the Supermarket
Equipment
- watering can
Materials
- 1 pot Supermarket coriander (cilantro)
- 1 Plant pot 2-3" larger in diameter than herb pot
- 4 cups Organic potting mix Peat-free and suitable for vegetables
- water
Instructions
- Remove the plastic sleeve from the potted herb plant. The coriander stems will flop out in every which way now that the support is gone.
- Using scissors, cut a third of the growth from the top. Use this fresh coriander leaf right away, or store it for later. You can refrigerate them, but the best way to keep coriander leaves fresh is to place the stems in a small glass filled shallowly with water. Storing them like a flower bouquet can keep the leaves fresh for a week.
- You’ll see a lot clearer now that many young plants are growing in the pot. Carefully slide the roots out, and you’ll see another issue. There will likely be a mass of roots around the sides and the bottom. Coriander from the supermarket is often pot-bound.
- Many supermarket herbs can be divided at this point into smaller clumps, and it makes sense if the plant has a long lifespan. Coriander does not, and dividing can stress the plant out even more, particularly if it’s very root-bound. The best way to re-pot supermarket coriander is to place it into a larger pot with fresh compost all around the sides and the bottom.
- Transplant the supermarket coriander using a plant pot with drainage holes, two to three inches wider than the original. Don’t plant it any deeper than it’s currently growing, and make sure that there are 1-2 inches of fresh compost underneath the plant. Firm the potting mix in with your fingers and water it in. Re-potting the plant with new potting mix will give it a little extra space to grow and provide additional nutrients and water retention.
- Place the coriander plant in a bright place with direct sunlight, but ensure it doesn’t get too hot. The ideal climate for growing coriander/cilantro is 50-80F (10-27C). Keep the potting mix moist, and feed the plant with diluted organic plant feed suitable for vegetables once a week.
- Harvest a third of the coriander’s top growth once a week. You’ll get several harvests before the plant begins to die or bolt, at which point you can buy a new supermarket plant and start again. Coriander/cilantro is a fast growing and short-lived plant that naturally grows, seeds, and dies in six to eight weeks.
- Spent coriander plants can be composted or buried under the soil.
Hi Tanya. I bought coriander from the store it was just tied with a rubber elastic not in a pot. After we used them I potted the stalks that had a little bit of root to it. will I benefit from that or should I have kept it just in water for a few days.
Thank you
Hi Althea, I don’t have high hopes for your coriander surviving. The tiny amount of root still attached probably won’t be enough to sustain the plant to grow any further.