A lot of times when my herbs go to seed; I'll let them fall in the pot where they are to restart a new plant. I'm sure more people can give advice as to drying seeds for specific plants. I think the best thing to do is to collect the seeds, keep them dry (important) and cool until next year. I don't know how long it would take to get them started again. Good luck.

Check the plants every few days. You will obviously see the seeds forming. For dill, they start it as oval green buds, that shrink into single seeds. The cilantro will have a brown seed (actually a fruit) and is at the end of each flower stem, just like the dill. My dill here is just starting to show a few flower heads. These are great added to dill pickles. I like to add whole dill seed heads when they are still swelled and green, to each jar of pickles that I can.

My dill is still at the yellow flowers stage, so I guess I've still got a ways to go, but pickles is exactly why I want the dill so bad. (My pickle plants are going crazy!)

With the cilantro, it's still in the flower stage also. I was hoping that was a sign it was about to seed soon.

Guess I need to learn a little more patience!

How best to collect? When most of the head looks like seeds should I cut it off and hang it in a paper bag or something to catch them?

For dill, you can harvest when they are still swelled and green. Cut off the whole head for use in pickles. For coriander. usually they turn brown and you can grab a stem below the spread and pull. I bring a small bowl with me to catch most of the seeds. They seem to hand on to the stems for some time. Same with dill, then when the dill is showing the tan color, they will easily fall off, or you can pull them off too. Collecting the seeds will require your hands, and a bowl, nothing else.

Thank you again ksrogers!

My biggest problem is I'm impatient. Seems like every day there are more flowers on the coriander, but none of them are turning to seed! And they're so towering they're keeping the smaller plants from coming up properly (because I was stupid and put seeds in where the plants were). I have never had this level of success with this herb before and had no clue it could get so tall! I'm currently debating cutting back 1/2 to 2/3 of what I have and just letting a few plants go to seed so that the "little ones" can get the light they need to grow. Think that would work?

As for the dill, the pickles aren't quite ready. The flowers are still yellow with yellowy-green centers (which I think are the seeds). So I'm trying to practice patience a bit longer.

And thank you for letting me know how easy harvesting them is. I had this picture in my head of all these seed heads hanging somewhere with cloth under them waiting for the heads to give up the seeds! (Perhaps I'm over thinking things and making them too difficult?)

I dont think you should cut your coriander as it may not grow back if you do. Coriander is mostly known for its leaves and usually the whole plant is sold. I grew coriander last year. I let it go to seed, can take upto a few weeks and was surprised to see so many new coriander plants growing this year.

It takes a few weeks for the flowers to go to seed. If it is obstructing other plants you can dig up the entire plant and put it somewhere else.

Do NOT cut off the coriander if you want seeds. It will not return or get bushy if the tops are removed. If you planted some new seeds at the base of mature growing plants, harvest the wide leaves of the new planting as cilantro. The tall coriander plants can reach 3 feet or more in height and you will usually see seeds forming very soon after they flower. Wait for the seeds to turn tan color The same holds true with dill and its 3+ foot or more in height, and the seeds are green and swelled up just after they flower. Tiny wasps and bees love to pollinate these too, which helps in seed production. PLEASE BE MORE PATIENT. Unless you live in Zone 2 or 3 or in an extremely short growing season, you have about 2-3 more months of growing time. I have never seen a pickle plant? Pickling cucumbers yes, but growing a pickle on a plant seems a bit unusual. My mammouth dill grew to over 5 foot tall and was really huge when it came up in my asparagus patch where there is always plenty of natural nitrogen. If I were to grow pickling cukes this year, they would have been producing about the same time as the dill was forming seeds. My dill wasn't planted by me, as it was from seeds that had fallen from last summers plants. They do survive our winters, and even corn gluten applications, which usually prevent most things from germination.

While I mention corn gluten, I must say that Periwinkle (Vinca) a purple flowering ground cover vining plant does NOT like corn gluten, as it had killed some of mine a month after applying the corn gluten. Because I get a lot of weeds showing up in the periwinkle patch, I thought that the gluten would control them, but it went overboard, and attacked the good plants too.

Ken - In the past I've had a SERIOUSLY hard time growing cilantro. I picked more in my first harvest this year than I usually do all season. (And I've harvested 5 times now!)

My "plot area" for it is limited (about 3 x 3) and they were so topheavy they were falling over to the ground and keeping sun from the "little ones".

So I decided to cut off about 80% of the tops, and left the rest to go to seed. That's leaving about 20 "heads" to go to seed. Plus I can let some of the "little ones" go to seed also, so I think I've left enough to keep it going all season!

By the time I was done, I took just the leaves off the stalks and chopped them. (Don't know if I could have eaten the buds and flowers or not.) I have more than 4 cups of chopped cilantro in my fridge. Now I'm thinking I should measure out amounts for my salsa in separate bags and freeze so it doesn't go to waste.

Cilantro herb is quite volitile. That means that once its picked, it should be eaten very soon. If left in the fridge more than a couple of days it loses most of its flavor. If you have ever tasted fresh dried, you will sooon realize that it has virtuially no tasted at all. Cilantro does not like the heat of the day in full sun. Luckily here, sun is only from early morning to about 2PM, unless I plant it closer to the edge of my garden where large oak trees tend to shade the area a lot. Mine used to come up every year after I allowed it to go to seed (actually a fruit). Never ate the flowers or buds, but suspect that they are also edible.

My cilantro is on the east side of the house, so it gets full sun till about 12:30 / 1 in the afternoon. Same place it's always been. For some reason though, this year, all the herbs I usually plant (in the same spots as always) are going like gangbusters, where last year I wasn't even able to get enough basil off my plants to make pesto. (This year I'm sharing with the neighborhood!)

I guess if I can't find something to do with it in the next day or so I'm going to end up composting it. *sigh*

Dry it and use it later on. Even though basil may change flavor once dried, it still has a decent flavor when added to tomato dishes.