Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A question for those who've grown water cress:

I've put water cress on a floating raft in our FT. It's already starting to flower. My wife queried whether it was the kind of thing that we didn't want going to seed in case it took over the grow beds. (like mint would do).

As we understand water cress can grow very fast.

Does anyone who has had much experience with water cress care to comment?

We have grown... and still grow Watercress directly in our Growbeds. It grows best at the water inlet. (Our Growbeds are Expanded Clay, Flood & Drain - Siphon). We harvest regularly by severely trimming - grows back quickly. Best wishes - ColinW

We do the same! Keep it trimmed and you'll be fine.
Love it with Egg on sandwiches

Most of ours has gone to flower at the moment, just that time of year, it will shoot off with leaf growth soon..

goes well with blue cheese and egg in a soup too in winter.

I love the stuff and it loves water

Yep. Same here: ripped off huge hunks (half to 3/4 of the plant) when it got out of control. And I trained it over the side of the growbed and removed any that tried to grow across the growbed. I found that while the other watercress in the yard (garden pond, etc) went to seed in the spring, the stuff in the AP system stayed happy and green, perhaps due to high nitrates.

Here is a link to the pic. The watercress is just to the left of the pipe: I think I just gave it a haircut. viewtopic.php?p=254738#p254738

Pretty darned good for September! (that's March to you folks)

This is really a cut`n come again plant! Ours just keeps on going! never ending!
We thought that the icy weather had put an end to our gb of watercress - but lo and behold - it is coming back to life again!
When it looks like it is starting to flower we feed it to the pigs and poultry!
Note- it also self seeds in clay balls.
See article in BYAPmag9.
OH of WD

Great thing on Water Cress farm in England and the Neighbour attached a trout farm to the system.
The trout grew faster not being fed just eating the bugs and stuff growing naturally in the water the watercress was growing in.
River Cottage ABC today

I found some in a supermarket with roots and all. We bought one bunch and tasted it. It tastes nice with a green and peppered flavor. It was rather expensive. We then bought three more plants and stuck two in the grows bed and divided oen into about ten parts and put in net pots in a sterofoam raft. That was in mid October, early fall here. In the grow bed they are growing fine and have had a coujple of pickings off each plant. In the raft The little cuttings have doubled in size in just a couple of months. I found some seed and planted in clay balls in another raft with net pots. Those did finally germinate and showed tiny green leaves before all the leaves fell and buried them. They all seem to be thriving slowely in the cold and low sun. Do not know yet how they will do in the desert heat.

My favorite way to eat it:

Put some in an empty bowl and pour very hot soup over it.
Extra good in turkey or duck soup.

easy to propagate:
1) cut off a stem (6" to 12" works well)
2) bury most of it in the AP bed, leaving some of the growing end sticking out
3) stand back

I got some seeds from Johnny's selected seeds last fall and sprinkled them in my water chestnut bins and anywhere that water tended to be over the gravel a lot (constant inflow beds) And it was rather slow to really get going, but once it was up and growing well it grew fast and really uses up the nitrates well.

It also seems to thrive in an alkali or high pH system. Good for me with my shells.

However, come hot weather here in spring most of it seemed to die back or was eaten up by caterpillars before I even realized it was being attacked. So now all I have here in the heat are a few small plants that I believe must have grown from self seeded seeds so perhaps it will come back on it's own once cool weather gets going but I'll probably re-seed come September.