Help me grow decent dill at home!

July 9, 2023 11:31 AM

I'm a decent gardener, but my several attempts at growing dill have not fared well. What can I do differently to get better results?

I don't have a yard, so I'm limited to container gardening on my deck. I'm in Chicago (zone 5b). My deck faces south so it gets plenty of sun. I use large containers (I've used Earthboxes or good sized pots for dill). Like I said, I'm okay enough at this type of gardening, and get good to very good results for various other herbs, lettuces/greens, and smaller vegetables such as jalapenos and small tomatoes. I use plant food/compost/dolomite to improve my soil each season, though I don't go crazy with any of them.

I HAVEN'T gotten good results with parsley or cilantro (except briefly one season, when my cilantro patch became incredibly lush for a couple weeks before rapidly declining). Perhaps whatever issues I have growing those herbs also explain the poor performance of my dill.

The variety I've always tried to grow is greensleeves dill, and I've tried growing from seeds and from seedlings. The dill just doesn't thrive. Even with three plants I've never been able to harvest more than a couple tablespoons worth at a time, if I can get any decent amount at all. The few leaves I get tend to go yellow/brown. Meanwhile, I've seen dill plants grown by others - also in containers! - in my area that look great. My dill plants do tend to start crawling with small black caterpillars at a certain point in the season, and they no doubt hurt the plants (I haven't yet tried netting or anything else to keep them away). But it's not like the plants are doing well before the caterpillars show up.

That's everything I can think of that might be relevant, but feel free to ask questions in the comments. My appreciation in advance for any thoughts!

posted by Mechitar to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

Cilantro and dill can both be pretty reactive to heat and will bolt quickly if they get too hot. There are two primary ways to combat this: get seeds in the ground early or start them indoors so they’re already established when you plant, or set up some shade cloth for them.

They may be getting too much heat bouncing off of the exterior walls.

The other thing is to make sure you have drainage in the containers so they don’t stand in water. Good luck!
posted by Silvery Fish at 12:12 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

Your sense of expected yield from three plants may be off. A couple tablespoons sounds like what I'd expect from a few plants. We sow seed thickly so there are dozens of plants in a small space, and just thin it out by harvesting as it grows.

I buy an ounce of seed rather than a packet for repeated sowings, because it's not a long-lasting crop. Our spring sowing needs to be torn out and replaced atm.

Yellow/brown sounds like overwatering. It doesn't bounce back from that well.

I'm sure you're following packet instructions, but just in case, remember it needs light to germinate; you barely cover it, just a sprinkle.

If you keep failing with the variety you've been repeatedly trying, why not switch? Johnny's has two they recommend for containers.

I find even with fresh seed, parsley is tough to germinate (we over-sow to get around that because I haven't had success with scarification or soaking and I can't manage winter sowing) and cilantro, like dill, is generally not long-lasting, except for varieties like Calypso.
posted by jocelmeow at 4:18 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

My Chicago garden has dill, parsley, and cilantro. The dill re-seeds on its own (in the yard) but the big difference is mine is south facing but pretty blocked so it doesn’t get TONS of sun. I would imagine it would burn up on my south facing porch in a container. Parsley and cilantro are colder weather crops — cilantro is especially not great in chicago in my experience because it like sunny but cool weather and we only get a few weeks of that. I had a good patch going but it’s all gone to seed now because of the heat.

• try in a less sunny or morning sun only location
• all of those herbs work better with more seeds than you think you need, and planted consecutively a few weeks apart (they don’t last too long so you have to have young plants chasing them)
• some herbs just aren’t cut out for Chicago July/August weather but try “slow-bolt” varieties /li>
• pots dry out way faster than the ground and need more frequent watering - keep an eye on that soil
• try sprouting indoors or covering your pot to make sure birds aren’t eating the seeds (I got 3 carrots growing from the 4 rows of seeds planted this year!)

posted by Bunglegirl at 5:54 PM on July 9, 2023

I'm also in Chicago growing in south-facing back deck containers, and I have success letting my dill self-seed. One large-ish container constitutes my dill patch, and it's now pretty much done for the year save for a few stragglers. These I will leave to bolt and drop seed, and otherwise I will ignore the dill situation and grow other things in that container the rest of the year. Come sping a whole bunch of baby dills (way, WAY more than three plants) will pop up all on their own. Around about June they get big enough to harvest (and by "harvest", I mean I completely pull out the largest plants, which gives the remaining ones more room to grow), and I get maybe 2-3 nice sized bunches before it gets too hot and they all bolt and the cycle starts over again.
posted by gueneverey at 6:29 PM on July 9, 2023

The caterpillars might be black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars - do you happen to have a photo of one?
posted by centrifugal at 10:54 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

Dill does very well inside, if a countertop herb garden is a possibility.
posted by Bottlecap at 6:03 AM on July 10, 2023

Seconding Bottlecap - my Aerogarden grew great dill (past tense, since I much prefer fresh basil to fresh dill).
posted by birdsquared at 12:11 AM on July 13, 2023