How To Grow Cilantro Microgreens

Cilantro microgreens are one of the trickier microgreens to grow. But If you learn how to grow Cilantro microgreens, they could prove to be a profitable microgreen for you. Chefs love Cilantro microgreens!

This post will tell you all of the steps in growing Cilantro microgreens. It will also tell you how to grow Cilantro microgreens without seed hulls remaining on them, so read on!

Why Grow Cilantro Microgreens?

Besides the fact that Cilantro microgreens have great flavour, and are great to use in your own cooking. Cilantro microgreens are a great microgreen to know how to grow if you’re looking to target restaurants with your microgreens business.

Cilantro microgreens are really popular with chefs, and although they are not the most profitable microgreen to grow (I will tell you why later in this post) being able to grow them may be what gets you the business of certain restaurants.

How To Grow Cilantro Microgreens

From start to finish, with an average temperature of 20 degress Celcius or 65 degrees Faranheit, it’s going to take 21 days give or take to grow Cilantro microgreens to the point where they will be ready to present to chefs. If your average temperature is hotter, the time will be reduced, and if it is lower it will be increased.

With Cilantro microgreens, we want the first true leaf just starting to come onto the plants, as can be seen in the picture below.

Trays

You’re going to need 2 trays, one with holes and one without holes in it. The reason for this is so that when your Cilantro microgreens are established with lots of leaves, you will be able to water them from underneath. The tray with holes sits inside the tray with no holes. You then pour water into the bottom tray, and the water is absorbed through the first tray’s holes and into the soil. I recommend using 10 by 20 inch growing trays. European trays – Click here. UK trays – Click here.

Growing Medium

You’re going to need some soil, I recommended using a coconut coir based compost if you can get your hands on it. A very fine soil is needed for growing microgreens.

This next material is optional, and that is vermiculite. Vermiculite is a natural product that comes from the earth, I’ll explain what you’re going to use it for further on.

Seed

You’re going to need some cilantro seed, there’s 2 types of cilantro seed, whole seed and split seed. A whole cilantro seed has 2 seeds inside of it. Don’t buy these seeds, make sure you buy split seed, split seed is much easier to grow and manage. With split seed you’ll only have 1 plant coming up per seed, and split cilantro seed will germinate a little bit quicker than whole seed.

You’ll notice that your Cilantro seeds have a very hard shell, and if you were to chew them, they could agitate a filling in your teeth! Because they’re so hard, when the Cilantro microgreens sprout, they have a hard time shaking off and breaking this shell because it’s so hard.

If you think about a radish seed, it’s soft, and when it’s damp, after the radishes have sprouted, the seed shell will break up easily between your fingertips. Cilantro seeds won’t do this, they’ll stay rock hard until the bitter end, they’re a tough cookie!

If you are based in the United States, I recommend you buy your seed from trueleafmarket.com. They are a highly reputable company. I interviewed the owner Parker Garlitz on episode 9 of the Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast.

Planting Cilantro Microgreens

Do not soak your seeds beforehand, it is not necessary, trust me.

Take your tray with holes and put it inside your tray with no holes. This is so you can water from the bottom later on, when the leaves of the plants are developed and we want to keep them dry.

Fill the tray up with about ¾ of an inch of compost, press it down then so the compost is flat. Water it then before putting any seed in. Water just enough so it’s nice and damp, but not soggy.

Then you’re going to put your seeds in on top of your soil. For a 10 x 20 inch seed tray, I recommend using 43 grams of split cilantro seed. If you have a different size seed tray, you can download a free microgreens seed calculator here and it will give you my seed reccomendation for any size tray.

I sow my seeds pretty dense and I get good results at this rate. Weigh your 43 grams of seed out, and spread the seed as evenly as you can all over your soil. Press the seed down then with your hand or something flat. You don’t have to press too hard, you just want to make sure that there’s good soil to seed contact.

What Not To Do!

A lot of people then will spray the seeds with water, stack a tray on top and that’s it, they’re ready to go. But that’s not what you’re going to do. That’s how you get problems with seed hulls sticking to the leaves. If you do it that way, I guarantee you your Cilantro microgreens will grow with the seed hulls stuck to the leaves.

Covering Your Seed

What you are going to do is, you are going to cover your seeds with either soil or vermiculite. This is my secret to growing Cilantro microgreens without seed hulls attached to the leaves, basic I know!

You’re going to cover your seeds now with either your soil or vermiculite. You’re going to put a layer of about a half inch over them, that’s the secret.

Soil will work well for this if it’s very fine and airy. If you’ve got a really sticky soil made up of big clumps, and it doesn’t crumble in your hands, what’s going to happen if you do this method of covering the seeds is, the seeds will just push the whole top layer up into the air. The shoots won’t be able to break through it, and they will get smothered and eventually die.

So if you can’t find a really nice fine and airy soil, what you can do is use vermiculite to cover the seeds. Vermiculite works great, it does the exact same job at getting the seed hulls off the leaves, and it’s guaranteed to work. Vermiculite is nice and airy, so the shoots will come up through it easier.

Both soil and vermiculite serve the same purpose. By covering your seeds with one of them, your Cilantro microgreens will grow without the seed hulls attached to the leaves.

Spread your soil or vermiculite over your seeds evenly and press down gently. Water it again to wet that top layer, same deal as before, just enough so it’s nice and damp but not soggy.

Why The Seed Hulls Don’t Stay Attached

So how does this happen? Take a look at the picture below and see the way that seedlings grow. You will see that the shoot of the Cilantro microgreen does not come out of the soil, leaves first.

The shoot comes up through the soil hunched over with its back in the air. Because of this, and because the seeds are buried, when the cotyledon leaves are coming out of the soil backwards, with the seed hull attached, they have to make their way through that half inch of soil, so it’s a struggle for the plant to get through that. The plant will make it through, but the great thing here is that when the plant is on its way out of the soil, the soil will grip the seed hull and keep it in the soil.

Germination

There is no need to stack anything on top of your tray for weight, because the seeds are buried and the shoots of Cilantro microgreens are delicate, it just doesn’t need any weight on top.

I’ll usually use these trays of Cilantro microgreens as the weight on top of another stack of trays. There is no need for a dome or any type of cover either.

Leave your tray now and let the seed start germinating. At an average of about 20 degrees Celsius, or 65 degrees Fahrenheit, you’re going to start seeing the shoots break through the soil or vermiculite after about 8 days.

In the period between day 1 and day 8, check how the soil or vermiculite feels, if it feels like it’s getting a bit dry, water it, from the top. I’ll usually water the soil from the top about once or twice between day 1 and day 8. I just use a basic mini watering can with a basic sprinkler nozzle on the end of the spout for this.

Shoots Breaking Through The Soil

On day 8, or whenever you’re starting to see the shoots coming through, water the tray again from the top. What you’re going to do is raise the watering can high in the air and pour water on the soil. If you have a hose hooked up with a sprinkler type nozzle hooked up to it you can use that. What we’re trying to do here is, put a bit of pressure on the soil with the water to break the soil a small bit, and loosen it up so it makes it easier for the shoots to break through the soil.

This will stop all the soil being pushed up into the air like a blanket over the shoots.

If you’ve used vermiculite to cover the seed, this won’t be as necessary, because it’ll be easier for the shoots to comes through the vermiculite, but still water from the top at this point to help them. You’re going to keep watering from the top like this every couple of days, to help the shoots come out. Some will come up quicker than others.

When To Put Them Under Lights

I’ll usually put them under the grow lights after about day 10. If you’re not using grow lights, you can put them onto your window sill. Usually all of the shoots haven’t come out at this stage, but I put them under the lights because the shoots that have come out get too elongated if you keep them out of the light any longer.

You’re going to have to keep watering as described above, on top of the shoots until the majority of them have broken through the soil. Usually that’s after about 12 days.

From that point on, when the shoots have broken out of the soil, you will switch to watering from the bottom every day or two. Be careful with Cilantro microgreens because they are sensitive to getting dry, and they will bend over and wilt easily if they get too dry, so keep an eye on them.

First True Leaves

Then it’s time to wait on the first true leaf to come onto the plants, you’ll notice it easily because it’s a really nice leaf and totally different to the cotyledon ones. Chefs really like that leaf, it looks really nice on their dishes.

You’re going to start seeing those leaves come out roughly after about 17 days. You can harvest at this point really, the majority of the plants won’t have the true leaves yet, but it’ll still taste great.

When To Harvest

I let them grow for about another 5 days, until the majority of the plants have their true leaves on them. The reason I do this is because most of the chefs want those true leaves on them, because they really like them and they make their food look great.

Some chefs aren’t as picky, and they only want them to add in for flavour. I deliver to 2 chefs that only add them into lamb dishes, just for flavour, so they don’t mind what they look like. So it’s always good to ask your chef what way they want them to look.

On day 21, it’s time to harvest, you’re going to cut your Cilantro microgreens about an inch above the soil with either a scissors or a knife.

Yield

If you have grown in a 10 by 20 inch seed tray, it should yield you around 250 grams of Cilantro microgreens. The yield is not as high as other microgreens, and it takes a long time to grow, so make sure you charge as much as you can for it to make it worth your while, if you are growing Cilantro microgreens for profit.

Profitability Of Cilantro Microgreens

I can charge 6 euros and 50 cents per 50 grams, and that converts into 7 US dollars and 60 cents, so that gives our tray a value of €32.50 or $37.50.

This sounds great, and there’s nothing wrong with it for a tray of plants you’re after growing, but if it’s a business you’re running, you have to think about it differently. That tray has spent 11 days under lights. It’s not the lighting cost that’s the issue, it’s the space. Thats if you’re limited for space. If you’ve plenty of space you’re fine.

So a spot under the lights has been taken up for 11 days. In that time, 3 or 4 different trays of brassicas could have been finished in its space.

Conclusion

Cilantro microgreens are a really nice microgreen, they taste amazing and look beautiful. It’s just not ideal that they take such a long time to grow. I only grow them if chefs ask me for them, otherwise I usually try and promote the more profitable microgreens.

If a chef does ask you to grow them, I would, because most likely they’ll always buy other varieties off you too. So it is a good microgreen to become good at growing.

Comment Below

I hope you found this post helpful, and you are able to grow some nice Cilantro microgreens. Let me know below if you like the taste of Cilantro! Some love and some think it tastes like dish soap! Have your say below!

If you think you know of others who might enjoy and learn from this post, it’d be great if you shared it with them on social media, or wherever they might see it. Thanks for reading.