Johnny's offered it last year and I've ordered it this year. It's an alternative to cilantro and tolerates more shade, which I have plenty of. Also cilantro seems to have a short harvest time before it bolts and I have trouble getting it for all of salsa making season. this culantro looks nothing like cilantro but it's supposed to have the same flavor. anyone try it and can give me some input?

It likes dry shade. Don't overwater it or it melts.

Cilantro tastes like soap to me, so I can't imagine growing something which tastes just like it.

Does this culantro also go to seed and become corriander? Which is what Cilantro does. Come to think of it, it kind of does taste like soap. But I like it anyway, cooked with something, not plain.

Never tried culantro. Cilantro is also known as "Chinese Parsley". My MIL and grandmother-IL use it when making shrimp dumplings, chicken dumplings, pork dumplings... It's not a bad flavour, and I never noticed that it tasted like soap (I've been faithful to Ivory most of my life; I'll have to lick a bar and see ). It's pretty pungent, and can easily be overused in cooking.

I grow it because I don't seem to have the option of NOT growing it anymore, and it's a great companion with potatoes, but I rarely cook with it myself.

No, I don't think it goes to seed and becomes coriander. The appearance of culantro is very different; the leaves are nothing like cilantro's parsley type leaves. There's a picture of it at the Johnny's site. I use cilantro in mexican cooking, where it reminds me of adding lime juice, and in a chutney recipe. So both ways it's mixed with a variety of other potent flavors. I've never noticed a soap flavor.

Culantro is a totally different species than cilantro. the culantro seeds are tiny.

I grew the stuff last year. it tastes somewhat like cilantro and would be good in salsa. Mine did not make a lot of leaves before going to seed. Maybe because it was in too wet an area.

it's a shame that cilantro is a cool weather herb. It can be planted as early as peas and over winters well with mulch or row cover. but by the time salsa season comes around it is problematic to grow cause it bolts in heat.

I've heard other people say cilantro has a soapy, or grassy flavor. I think it tends to taste that way when it's used over-abundantly, or when it has bolted.

Succession-sowing and shade cloth seem to help somewhat in keeping cilantro around until salsa season. Judiciously used, it gives even canned salsa a fresh, perky flavor. But my favorite way to use it (in abundance) is my own cilantro-feta pesto recipe. I sell oodles of it at our farmers' market every year.

I suspected the succession planting and shade cloth but was hoping for another solution. I guess if I didn't use the shade cloth it would just go to seed as a small plant instead of a large one. I may try digging up a plant or two and moving them to a shady location. Disturbing the roots might slow down the bolting. (??) Thanks for all the input.