We had a frost warning last night so we were out covering peppers and tomatoes, trying to eke out a couple more weeks of homegrown tomatoes, peppers, and cukes.

We didn’t cover the Swiss chard, onions, basil, tomatillos or zucchini and all are just fine. The threat of the cold snap did make me grab some of my coriander though. It’s funny, while our cilantro plant at the back of the house has completely gone to seed, a ton of fresh cilantro is popping up at the front of the house. This worked out well since I brought a bunch of coriander seeds inside to save and still got to use the fresh cilantro for the tomatillo salsa that I canned today.

Here’s a shot of some of my coriander seeds:

I toasted a few of them & threw them into the pork shoulder roast I cooked today, and the rest of them I stemmed and cleaned and poured into a glass jar for my spice cabinet.

I’ve saved seeds from vegetables also – squash, tomatoes, peppers – I just rinse them well, let them dry for a few days in a single layer on a plate and then store in a marked envelope until the following year.

This is a great way to keep a special harvest going if you’ve ordered hard-to-find seeds. Just make sure the seeds you save are from healthy plants.

I don’t usually have to replant cilantro since many of the seeds bury themselves and make a showing the following year. Isn’t nature grand?

Happy harvesting!