Why is my dill plant dying before summer?

Dill, dill weed, or Anethum graveolens, is a quickly growing herbaceous annual (or is it a perennial?... we will debate that later) that completes its life cycle in as little as two months. Two months!! What is the point in growing this stuff? And how old is my plant that I just purchased from the store?

Don't worry, we are going to go over tips on how to keep your dill plant lasting well into the fall or all year and how to keep a full supply. Maybe more of a supply than you need! Nope nope, that's not possible when you learn about some of the useful ways to use it in the kitchen and the garden.

Everyone talks about how easy it is to grow dill, so as a gardener with a few years of experience under my belt, I was perplexed as to why I was having such a difficult time. So the seed is easy to germinate and get started and you have a plant in just a month or two. It's the keeping dill that was the hard part for me. I typically plant in the spring, like most hobby gardeners. That's a little late for dill season. You can extend your plant time by growing as early as two weeks before the last frost. So in my opinion, dill is a little finicky. It likes mild weather, spring time temperatures. It doesn't do well in the winter, and it starts to bolt and wilt in the summer. So I'm not so sure who those pinners are out there claiming how easy it is... are actually out there growing it?

I like to start the season off with a plant and some seeds. I hardly have the patience to wait for dill to grow, so I usually buy one to hold me over until my seeds take off. Buy your plant... plant it and water. Nothing else. You will have dill for a couple of months. Maybe a touch longer if you are potting it and keeping it inside. You know you are doing it wrong (like I did for an embarrassingly long time) when your dill plant looks like one lone stalk growing three feet high. By cutting it wrong, I was actually encouraging the plant to grow tall and topple over and die even faster than two months.

It's all about the harvest. Some people call it pruning, I call it harvesting, because I use every little bit of it. Common sense would suggest that you harvest your dill by cutting it down at the bottom, I mean those little leaves look tender and fresh and more like what I see in restaurants and recipes. Those tender fresh ones are the ones you want, but you have to cut the top of the plant too!! Harvest from the top... every single time. This is key. Cutting from the top encourages the plant to get bushy and big, not stringy and puny.

The stalk part of the dill plant is flimsy and weak, that's why you want a few of them and not just one skinny "little tree." If your dill harvest is dependent on one lone stalk, you will sadly find (like I did), that your dill plant will fall over after one small wind storm or heavy rain. I would find it laying down in the mud before my cucumber plants could even meet its companion. Even if you are harvesting correctly, you will notice your plant to start to bolt as the temperatures heat up. Stay on top of your cutting to keep that fresh dill coming.

How to cut: Trimming up your plant from the top is key, but here are a few more tips that will really help with production. 1. Don't cut more than 1/3 of your plant. This is a basic tip for almost any herb or plant. Chopping down half the plant before it is even established will surely seal its demise. Eyeball about a third of your plant, and don't go past when the plant is less than a foot tall. 2. Cut at the branch or as I like to say at the V. The V portion of the plant is where new growth will occur and you don't want to reduce the chances of new growth. Haha, see that dirt under my fingernails..I'm just noticing as I post this. That proves you are taking advice from a real gardener, and not some blogger reposting other people's stuff for $$.

Consider planting some seeds throughout the season. With staggered plantings and regular trimmings the dill plant can continue producing tender leaves and edible blossoms into early fall.

My plant made it to fall!!! I hope to hear that from some of you. Ok, now what though, you said it was an annual? Wait or a perennial? I'm confused is this thing really dead or what? Once the life cycle of your plant is over, it will dry up and produce seed. Those yellow lacy tops aren't seed until they are brown and dry to the touch. You'll know. So ok it's dead, so there's our answer, it is technically an annual. BUT, you can plant these seeds right now and get a whole new crop of dill for the next season.. repeat...repeat... repeat, and you are never buying seeds again. If you carve out a section of the garden for dill, then you can keep it going year after year, so in that way I kind of think of it as a perennial. That's why they some people call it dill weed. I don't worry about it being an invasive weed though, because obviously it takes a little bit of harvesting effort to even make it past the two month mark.

Overabundance of dill? Yay! I hope to hear this from some of you.

Uses in the kitchen. Ok so you've spent the whole day gardening and now you don't have the time or desire to cook one of the 150 recipes you have pinned with all intentions of making. That is still no excuse for using your fresh herbs! Takeout food and frozen pizzas deserve your fresh herbs too. Didn't make your potato salad from scratch? Or as we like to call it in the South, "tater salad," no one will know when you cut up some of your fresh dill and sprinkle it on top. Yum yum. Microwave popcorn with dill sprinkled on top... serve it in a bowl, yeah now you have turned pantry food in to an hors d'oeuvres. Here is another summer cooking hack that I love to do with dill. I love gardening, but I don't have a ton of experience with canning, so this is a fast pickle prep. I buy the expensive pickles in the refrigerated section, they usually come in a plastic container. Eat those... Now save the juice. Sprinkle in your fresh dill from the garden and slice up some of your cucumbers and toss them in. It isn't exactly the same, but mmm pickle flavored cucumbers is almost better than the real thing in my opinion. I could go on and on... oh I can't forget this one. Ever tried the salmon with herb butter on top from Costco? So easy to recreate. Costco is a bit of a drive for me, so I sometimes make my own Costco style herb butter to top on any, I mean any... fish dish. Dill only lasts 2 to 3 days in the fridge, but in my opinion really starts losing flavor after only one day, so you might as well use it as soon as you can. This is why once you start growing it, you will always want some. Grocery store dill cannot even compete the farm to table freshness.

Uses in the garden. Dill repels cabbage worms. If you've ever grown organic cabbage this is like a little gold nugget of knowledge. I've harvested dill and I know standing right there in the garden that I can't use it all in the kitchen. I simply take extra dill, tear it up into sprinkle sizes and sprinkle all around my cabbage. Dill components include carvone and limonene... not a cabbage worm's favorite snack I guess.

Good luck with your dill planting! Send me your tips and tricks too!