It's way too hot for cilantro most of the year (in my experience.) This year my mom (Northwestern OK) and I (South-central OK) both grew healthy cilantro in our row-covered winter greens beds. Don't know if mine will survive the summer/reseed but I think hers has reseeded for several years. Good luck!

Yeah, cilantro doesn't lke heat. I had a good crop last spring with the cool weather and rain. I had hopd it would come back in the fall but it didn't. May I suggest you try papalo. This is a true warm weather plant and it wants ful sun, but it will grow when cilantro won't. I liked it, maybe even better than fussy cilantro. Thicker and therefore tougher leaves require a finer chop. It tastes similar to cilantro, maybe stronger, with its own unique taste. Fine in salsa or salad dressing that I use cillantro for. Use the bolted cilantro seeds in your pickles.

Cilantro has been one of my most frustrating efforts. Reseeding from the past year, is about the only way, I've had any success. Even then, it's usually long past ready when the rest of the salsa stuff is coming off.

Dehydrating is disappointing to say the least, so I may try the 'ice cube' method and see how that works out.

I have thought about devoting an entire raised bed and just see if I can get it to reseed every year. That or broadcast an area in the fall and lightly mulch with dried grass clippings.

Once either soil or air temperatures, or both, are around 75 degrees, cilantro starts getting ready to bolt. I used to work really hard to keep it going longer, but got tired of trying to fool Mother Nature (by mulching heavily, growing it in fairly heavy shade, keeping it very well watered, even using shade cloth to keep the ground around it cool). Nowadays I just grow cilantro during the cool season, and grow either Culantro or Papalo (similar flavor to cilantro but they thrive in the heat) in the warm season. It is relatively easy to grow indoors under lights, but I'd just as soon have Culantro or Papalo in the ground outdoors instead of growing it indoors.

Rick, Other than the fact that it is a cool-season plant, the only other reason I can think of that might explain why growing it can be challenging for you is that maybe your soil is too acidic, or much too alkaline. Cilantro is happiest in soil with a pH of 6.2 to 6.8 so in soil that is strongly acidic or strongly alkaline, it might not do well.

Cilantro reseeds in my compost pile, and none of the wildlife eat it, so I rarely have it in the garden proper any more---I just wait for it to pop up around the compost pile.

I do think that dehydrating brings out a bitter quality in it. Sometimes I leave it out of the salsa when I make it and can it, and then I just chop up fresh cilantro and add it to a jar after we open that jar. I think it tastes better than way, so probably the heat of the canning process also impacts the flavor.

I don't like weeds in my garden. Cilantro is a weed.....an evil, evil weed. LOL

I've noticed people rarely are neutral about cilantro. Either they love it or they hate it.

Thanks to everyone for the advice. My wife is from Atlantic Canada and the first time she tasted restaurant salsa with cilantro in it she almost spit it out. Now, after 30+ years of Tex-Mex cuisine, it is one of her favorite flavorings for food. Definitely an acquired taste.

I have never heard of papalo but that may be a good solution. Does anyone know where that is available in the Tulsa area? Seeds or bedding plants?

It grows easily from seed, but I don't remember seeing it on a rack. I would see if Southwoods might have seeds. Otherwise, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I got mine from the Sample Seed Shop.

Or check the plant sellers at the Cherry Street Farmers market. Sometimes Duck Creek has more unusual herbs. I don't remember seeing papalo though. But I have gotten several plants from them for other neat herbs.

Both culantro and papalo (also sold under its full name papaloquelite) are sometimes available in spring as transplants at garden centers in southern OK and northern TX, but I've grown my own from seed for the last 4 or 5 years. I either bought the seed from NIchols Garden Nursery or from Richter's Seeds online several years ago. I usually do a big herb seed order about every 5 years and then spend the next few years using up that seed. Sample Seed Shop is a great choice because the seed packets are small, so if you're not needing a lot of seed, I'd buy it there if Remy has it in stock now. When I've seen culantro in the stores, I'm pretty sure it was from Bonnie Plants, but I don't know if I noticed any of it last year. I know I saw it the year before.