No. 0027 · Coriandrum sativum
Monastery Coriander
- Crop
- Herb
- Climate
- Temperate
- Season
- Spring
- Origin
- Rila Mountains, Bulgaria
No. 0027The variety
A slow-bolting coriander kept in a monastery kitchen garden, grown for leaf in spring and for its large, citrus seed in summer.
Grows best inCool springs and light, well-drained soil
Seed passport
Perennial Seed Library · Season 2026
- Origin
- Rila Mountains, Bulgaria
- First documented
- 1923
- Days to maturity
- 50 days for leaf, 100 for seed
- Height
- 60 to 90 cm
- Hardiness
- Hardy to light frost
- Sun
- Full sun to light shade
- Spacing
- 10 cm, sown in rows
- Flavor notes
- Leaf bright and green; seed warm, sweet and citrus
No. 0027Growth timeline
From sowing to saving seed.
Stage 01 of 06
No. 0027Story
The story of Monastery Coriander
The gardeners of a small monastery in the Rila Mountains selected this coriander for the one quality every cook wants and few varieties have: it is in no hurry to flower. Where ordinary coriander bolts at the first warm week, this one keeps making leaf well into June before it sends up its umbels.
The seed came to us through Marta Ilieva, whose aunt worked in the monastery kitchen for thirty years and brought a jar of seed home when the garden was turned to lawn in 1987. The seeds are unusually large, and in the library we keep them for both purposes, a leaf crop and a spice.
Grown by
3 growers this season
Marta Ilieva
Rila foothills, Bulgaria
Saida Yusupova
Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan
Pierre-Yves Le Gall
Finistère, Brittany, France
Lending list · Season 2026
Borrow this seed.
Members borrow up to twelve varieties a year. Seed is posted on the first Monday of the month in a hand-numbered paper packet, and all we ask in return is a little of your harvest and a few lines about how it grew.