Jackie French: Spicing up winter with Coriander

Coriander's "plant me and watch me bolt" tendency, plus the fact I am married to a man who regards any recipe post-1956 Australia as revolutionary, meant I didn't bother growing coriander till about five years ago, when I worked out I could add parsley to his helping and coriander to mine.

Things had changed in the world of coriander growing by then. New varieties of coriander meant they were slow to bolt and could even be picked for a year after sowing in spring. But coriander is still a bit tricky – it grows best in dappled shade over hot summers, rather than full sun. It also does spring to seed in dry times if you forget to water it often (as in at least twice a day if it's hot and dry and add some more if it's windy as well) and mulch it too.

Luckily coriander grows fast, because this is possibly the ideal time to plant it, with warm days and cool nights. With some cosseting you'll have a harvest of coriander all through winter and into part of spring.

Step 1. Find or create a plot of weed-free, fertile soil or, if not fertile, as least weed free.

2. Mix the seed with sand and scatter it along rows 30cm apart. Planting coriander seedlings out is almost always a very tricky proposition and most will produce very few harvestable leaves before running up to flower and seed.

3. Water gently, so the seed doesn't wash into clumps

4. When the seedlings are finger high, feed with a complete plant food and mulch after a good hot day, to help keep the soil warm as the days cool down.

An even better method is to plant into pure compost. Your seeds will germinate, grow and give lush growth far better than the more usual "feed and mulch". It is a canny gardener, however, who still has compost to spare by the end of summer.

5. Keep watering, feeding and picking and picking.

Grow lots. Coriander roots are magic in many recipes, especially Thai, but once pulled out, the root does not regrow.

And next spring, when your plants do go seed, don't just pull them out. Snip off the first, long, tough flower stalk, and the next and the next – and keep watering and feeding and you'll be able to pull off side leaves for eating. Then finally, in late spring, let the plants shoot up and flower. By then they'll have several flower heads, not just one.

Slip a section of old stocking over some of the flower heads to catch the seeds. Home-gathered seed will often germinate far faster and more reliably than bought seed, assuming it's not from a hybrid that doesn't grow true to type, but that's not likely with coriander.

But do leave some to fall to the ground and germinate naturally. Over a few generations (coriander generations, not humans') you'll end up with a variety that adores your garden and its weather and soil.

Do try to avoid keeping the seeds from the first of your plants that flower though – consign them to the compost bin and wait for those plants that produced good leaves for longer, so that you are selecting for more leaf production rather than higher seed production.

Coriander has few pests and diseases but like parsley or any deep-rooted veg or herb, it doesn't like waterlogged soil. It will even help keep pests like cabbage white butterflies away both by scent and disguising the shape of the cabbages or caulies or broccoli scattered among the coriander plants. But I do mean scattered – you need about 10 coriander plants to one cauliflower to be effective.

This is not a hardship if you love coriander. A little chopped coriander even gives added zip to a dish of cauliflower cheese (but don't tell Bryan).

Coriander also grows brilliantly in pots or, rather, grows brilliantly in pots on a sunny or hot but dapple-shaded patio as long as you water it every day – pots dry out fast. Mulch them too. Then snip … and keep snipping until mid-spring, as you add a touch of spice to winter.