Cress ...
What happens to cress (I assume this is land cress - the stuff you get in
packs for kiddies, or adults who love it like me, to grow) if you plant it on kitchen towels and leave it, without cutting it to eat ? I ask because I have a soil pot that I am considering putting cress / mustard mix in, for the kitchen windowsill all year round. However, the soil pot isn't one I can drag up and start again with if it goes wrong so I can't really try it and see without some idea of how it will grow (a family pet is buried inside, only a small one so don't freak out !) Will cress and or mustard just keep growing and evenutally go to seed - and if so, what does it look like - tall, short, bushy, can you eat all of it ? I've always planted it on wet tissue and cut it about ten days later but sooner or later they gotta seed, right ? I always do this with my little companion animals, btw (have been for the last ten years) - they make herbs grow great and this way the little sweeties don't get dug up by foxes and they remain beautiful even after they die (yes, I am sentimental and I love my animals). I've just not done cress in this way before. Any ideas ? Rachael |
Cress ...
"Rachael of Nex, the Wiccan Rat" wrote in message ...
What happens to cress (I assume this is land cress - the stuff you get in packs for kiddies, or adults who love it like me, to grow) if you plant it on kitchen towels and leave it, without cutting it to eat ? I ask because I have a soil pot that I am considering putting cress / mustard mix in, for the kitchen windowsill all year round. However, the soil pot isn't one I can drag up and start again with if it goes wrong so I can't really try it and see without some idea of how it will grow (a family pet is buried inside, only a small one so don't freak out !) Will cress and or mustard just keep growing and evenutally go to seed - and if so, what does it look like - tall, short, bushy, can you eat all of it ? I've always planted it on wet tissue and cut it about ten days later but sooner or later they gotta seed, right ? I always do this with my little companion animals, btw (have been for the last ten years) - they make herbs grow great and this way the little sweeties don't get dug up by foxes and they remain beautiful even after they die (yes, I am sentimental and I love my animals). I've just not done cress in this way before. Any ideas ? I don't think (but I could easily be wrong) what we grow as cress is 'land cress'/'American cress', which is like a dry-land kind of watercress; so I don't know what it ends up like. Mustard, though, (and rape, which is what you often get under the name of 'mustard') will get leggy and rather hot-tasting: quite unlike the little sprouts we put in sandwiches. I'd surmise that cress will do much the same, and neither will be very succulent. But if the blotting-paper cress really is the same as land-cress, it'll get hot and dry, too, unless you keep plucking the young leaves. Once they've gone to seed, the story will be over. More a fun thing than a really viable vegetable option on the windowsill, I'd say. But I'm all for fun. Your pet funeral habits sound ideal for that difficult herb, basil; at least according to Keats, if you fancy a grisly poem at bed-time (not for the children, I hasten to add). But Keats was more a boxer than a gardener, so he may have misled me! Mike. |
Cress ...
In article , Rachael of Nex, the Wiccan
Rat writes I'd be interested to see what cress seeds actually look like on the plant. Never seen 'em other than in the packet ! Probably in a seed pod, most likely long like a very miniature green carrot, based on what other crucifers are like. It's Lepidum sativum, btw, according to a Google search. Landcress appears to be Barbarea vulgaris. -- Kay "Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river" |
Cress ...
Kay wrote in message ...
[...] appears to be Barbarea vulgaris. Ah, good old Barbara the Vulgar! Those were the days, eh? She was very popular when I was a student. Mike. |
Cress ...
As I understand it, the "cress" you buy in punnets frome the
greengrocer's is not cress but mustard. When I used to grow it you bought a packet of each and sowed the cress a few days before the mustard because the latter germinates more quickly. Mustard seeds are pale and round. Cress seeds are a conker colour and smaller. When they get wet they develop a slimy coating. I have never grown cress beyond the seedling stage to see what develops. Pam in Bristol |
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