Help me keep my coriander alive?!

[BeanyIsPregnant]

Hello, my name is Beany and I'm a plant killer.

I've bought one of those 'livings' coriander plants from Tesco, it's in it's little pot and stuff.... I want to keep it alive.. for at least a month..
Help me? What do I do?!

[ThisIsYourSong]

Your expectations are too high. Those are just to keep it fresh a little longer, not to actually grow it. I think you need to do that from seeds...

[KiaOraOAotearoa]

Dunno, I'm really good at killing them too!

[Justgotosleepnow]

You need to water it every day. One day without water and it will 'bolt'.
This means it will produce flower heads and you can't eat it. Tbh you have picked the most difficult herb to keep alive! I would cut it all and cook with it, and get a basil next time

[BeanyIsPregnant]

Okay.. That's progress at least! I'm in a first floor flat, so my options for growing herbs (which I really want to do!) is putting them outside our flat building in little pots (shouldn't be too much of a problem but the pots can't be too big..) or in my flat on a window sill.. What's my best option? :/

[GrowlLikeMargeSimpson]

The nature of coriander is to go over. It's not like other herbs like parsley or mint, if you have a good place for them to grow then you can keep the same bush indefinitely. Even under the best conditions you have to keep planting coriander from seed. I think if you use it regularly then you would need to plant seeds every two to three weeks so that as one lot goes over you have another lot just coming into the right stage.

I think you will have to resign yourself to probably needing to buy another pot if you want it in a month's time.

[EBearhug]

Coriander's an annual - it's not long-lived. Having said that, in the current weather in a sunny position, being regularly watered, it should be fairly happy.

[AntoinetteCosway]

I kill everything I try to grow indoors. I have now bought some mint and some rosemary and shoved it in pots outside. I ignore them. They get wet when it rains. They are thriving under my neglect! So I vote for outdoors and ignore them.

[BeanyIsPregnant]

Ohh okay! Ideally I wanted parsley but dp decided coriander was a better purchase clearly, because of all the cooking he does
If I threw some parsley in a tub outside then it should do it's thing? How long will it live for? :/

[GrowlLikeMargeSimpson]

Parsley will live indefinitely so long as it gets water, sunshine and it gets chopped back a bit every now and then so it doesn't get too leggy.

[WestmorlandSausage]

try parsley, rosemary, sage and mint if you want herbs that keep coming back.

[funnyperson]

That stuff in the pot isnt soil so you could transplant it into a pot with soll

[AntoinetteCosway]

funny what is it?

[funnyperson]

Some sort of sterilised compost with pesticide mix. Also they cram a lot of plant into one pot. You could divide up the plants before planting out into seedling compost.

[EBearhug]

Parsley is biennial, so will last longer than coriander, but not forever. It might self-seed though. I've got mint and rosemary, sage and bay in pots which have been going years.

[AntoinetteCosway]

Interesting funny!

EBear do you do anything to your mint to keep it under control? Mine is a bit massive now.

[WestmorlandSausage]

I only plant mint and sage in pots to stop them from running away with themselves.

[BeanyIsPregnant]

Okay, I'm going to try and get a parsley plant then replant it with some soil and hope for the best! il be back when it's dead..

[EBearhug]

EBear do you do anything to your mint to keep it under control? Mine is a bit massive now.

Every couple of years or so, I tend to go through the pots and thin them out and put in fresh compost in the pots.

I've grown a lot of plants in pots because I moved house quite a bit when I was younger, and they came with me. Though the mints started just as a way to keep them under control when I was still living at home.