How to grow Watercress at home
Home grow watercress at home
Growing watercress at home is actually Very easy despite the myth that watercress needs flowing water in order to grow. Although watercress will grow with better overall results in clean flowing water such a a stream or a quiet river flow which is the watercress’s natural habitat, I have grown my own watercress without flowing / running water in containers at hone with great results.
Growing Watercress At Home
There are very few situations in which watercress will grow. All the watercress plant needs to grow and thrive – is just water and light like most plants; but as the name suggestes, Watercress does need more water than other plants but also like most other plants It CAN be grown in a container or pot.
Almost anyone can can grow thier own Watercress at home.
You will be surprised as to where you can grow watercress.
Watercress can be grow virtualy anywhere so long the watercress plant/s have light and water. Wether you have watercress in a flower pot on a window cill, planted in a pot in your garden, or if even if you have a flowing stream at the end of your garden, watercress is actually very very easy to grow.
Watercres is not only a source of fiber but it is also high in vitamin C. Watercress has a peppery taste which can be used in salads, as a garnish and even as a soup on it own.
In this article I will take you through the process of how so very easy it is to grow watercress at home.
The way I personally discovered how to grow water cress at home was a relatively simple one by way of experimenting. I bought some freshly cut watercress which had roots on the stalks, and picked out each of the stens with roots on and planted them like another plant and gave thwn water … after all they are just plants like any other which grow. These plants took hold within a pot that I waterd well and within weeks I had Watercress plants that were proving regualar crops for our salds during the summer months.
I have later found out that you don’t even need to source watercress plants with roots on.
If you can get these then this will produce qucer reduls.
Within a number of weeks I had and abundance of fresh watercress that I put in sandwiches, eat in salads and even made watercress soup.
Without any previous knowledge of how to grow watercress. I began to grow my first watercrees plants in March.
So onto the main subject… how to grow watercress at home for the first time:
Step 1 – Find some watercress – of
The best place I have found to find/buy watercress from is from not your local supermarket, but from a farm shop or similar. I say this for two reasons:
- Its good to buy locally and support local shops
- They generally sell freshly cut watercress that still has roots on.
You can of course get your watercress from your local supermarket, but for me buying watercress locally i,e a farm shop or local market/veg supplier seemed a more the best way tp go for many reasons.
If you want to buy your watercress from a supermarket you may find that generally the cut watercress have less or no roots at all on the stems. (As it was pointed out to me in a comment below)… you can buy watercress by the bag from your local super market and place the watercress stems in jar of fresh water for a few days and change the water every day and discard any that turn yellow. In a short time you should find new roots appear. I have tried this and it does work from watercress bought from a supermarket.
However, for this article I got mine from a local farm shop as for me personally, I beleive these are the bst places to get any fruit or veg when available to help local business.
Ths is what a fresh bunch of watercress looks like bought from my local farm shop.
A bunch of Watercress
So, once you have found some watercress with roots on the stems (or used supermarket watercress and placed it in water for a few days), you will need to select the stalks that have roots – as these are the ones that you will be planting.
Select Stalks with roots
Try and select the stems with the most roots. These will be you main stems for planting as they will be the strongest and you will get far better results. But even stems that only have small roots are still worth planting. I have had a lot of success with planting cut watercress stems with few or small roots. They just take a little longer to establish.
Step 3 – Find a suitable container (with drainage holes) and fill it with rich compost
The container pictured below is one I had lying around. Any deep plastic container will do even a bucket, but try and use a plastic container as terracotta for example will dry out too quickly. Just make sure your container has some drainage holes in the bottom to prevent the damp compost going stagnant. If the container cannot drain, then your watercress will not grow but will rot instead. In the container below, I drilled about 10 holes 5mm in width to allow for water drainage.
Once you have a deep container with drainage holes, you will need to fill it with some compost. Watercress grows naturally in flowing streams. Flowing streams provide a constant supply of fresh minerals and food for the watercress to grow, so I used half and half mix of shop bought compost and well rotted home made compost which is rich in nitrogen and nutrients. Basically watercress will grow in any compost (I have tried). As long as the compost is rich in nutrients, you can’t go far wrong. Once you have mixed your compost and filled your container, try and leave at least 3-4 inches from the top of the compost to the rim of the container as this will help contain your growing watercress.
Firm the compost down and give it a REALLY good water… until the compost is literally saturated.
Use a deep plastic container with rich compost
Step 4 – Planting your Watercress
Once your container has drained a little but still very wet, you can plant out your selected watercress stems.
Use a dibber a little larger than the size of the watercress stems to make holes in the compost.
Use a dibber to make holes in the compost
Planting Watercress
Gently firm the compost around the stem
Repeat making holes and inserting your watercress stems into the wet compost. When established, each watercress stem will take up a lot more space, so in this container I planted each stem about 4 inches (9-10cm) apart.
All planted for this container
Water the planted stems well
Step 5 – After Planting Watercress
After the stems have been planted and watered in, I placed the container in a cool and shady spot out of the sun.
You will probably find that soon after planting, the stems will have wilted… but do not despair! this is only temporary. After I planted mine and saw that they had wilted, I gave them some more water.. after all watercress naturally grows in flowing streams.
After planting - the stems do wilt
Water the container everyday to keep the compost wet. I used rainwater from a water butt, but tap water will do.
Step 6 – Established Watercress Plants
Providing your watercress stems had healthy roots, and you have kept the compost damp, you should after about 4-5 weeks have well established watercress plants.
About 4-5 weeks after planting the stems
Step 7 – Looking after your watercress
When and only when, the watercress stems have established themselves into growing plants and are producing new shoots should you begin to feed them. I used miracle grow as per the instructions on the packet, but any good quality plant feed should be fine. Feeding once a week or every 10 days should suffice, just remember to WATER your plants every day to keep the compost damp. IMPORTANT Watercress does not like stale or stagnant water.
Step 8 – Keeping your Watercress growing
Like most plants at some point they will produce flowers and watercress will also do the same. If your plants are healthy, you may notice that in time (once your watercress plants are established and you plants have been growing well and you have been reaping the rewards by cutting shoots regularlary), that the leaves become smaller and you may begin to see small buds forming… sorry I dont have photo’s but hope to soon. If you see any one of these two things… this is what is going on.
- Your Watercress has is lacking in nutriments – your have not fed it enough.
- Your plants are wanting to produce flowers and goto seed.
- If your watercress plants are flowering, a way to stop this is to pick off the flowers to encourage more growth.
- Or let your watercress goto seed and wait for the seed pods to ripen, dry the pods (hope to have photos later) and then collect the seeds for next years sowing. After all watercress produces seeds just like any other plant.
Good luck in growing your very own watercress at home.. it really is very easy.
There is no need to buy watercress with roots on, buy an ordinary bunch and place it in a bowl of fresh clean water – after a couple of days roots will develop. Discard any that turn yellow or do not root and plant the rest.
Thank you for great info about growing watercress… a subject I was most curious to learn about! Because you took the time to include the fabulous photos as well as detailed descriptions of each step, I feel confident enough to give this a try!
I always thought that you needed running water to grow watercress. Are you sure this will work? I will try it and give you feedback. It does make a lot of sense to me since it is a plant like any other plant. I guess that the secret is to keep it wet. What about submerging it in water like so many others have said?
@Glenda
Hi Glenda,
well… the photos in this post are my own watercress plants grown just in wet (it MUST ALWAYS BE WET or at least very damp) ordinary compost. Water cress grows naturally in running water, but having tried to grow in compost my self I know it works. The poto’s are from last year and at the end of the summer these plants went to flower and stopped growing… (I should have removed the flower heads). I recently bought another bunch of water gress which I now have in a glass on my kitchen window cill. I change the water DAILY and after a few days… roots started to appear. So I will be soon planting them out and keep in my greenhouse. I hope to be adding another post about how to watercress at home soon. called ‘Part 2′
Thanks for a helpful guide. I did grow from seed – not very easy, they are so small and take a while. So I would recommend your way as better. And cheaper! My plants have gone small and now I know why. I hope they will grow on in mild Somerset winter, and then grow big leaves again when well fed in spring.
I’ve started growing watercress from seed in pots in my kitchen. Although it has grown quickly the leaves are quite small. Is this because the plants are inside?
@kay
Hi Kay,
How many plants do you have in the pot and also how big is the pot? It maybe that they need thining out or a bigger pot. Also try giving them some plant food such as miricle gro or similar. Make sure you follow the plant food instructions as you don’t want to over feed!
I’ve started growing watercress from seed in pots in my kitchen. Although it has grown quickly the leaves are quite small. Is this because the plants are inside?
@kay Hi Kay, How many plants do you have in the pot and also how big is the pot? It maybe that they need thining out or a bigger pot. Also try giving them some plant food such as miricle gro or similar. Make sure you follow the plant food instructions as you don’t want to over feed!
Hi – Good idea growing watercress ‘at home’. I have done so, from seed the first time.
Growing from stalks is quicker as the roots grow quicker for some reason.
Good draining is MOST important – water laying in the bottom of the pot will put an end to the growth – quite quickly. If you can grow in running water ( make sure the water does not come from land grazed by sheep) it is even more productive.
David
What a brilliant site with such clear photos. I had been wondering how to grow watercress and this has been extremely useful. Thank you for posting such helpful info.
Fabulous. Thank you. I love watercress, but it’s so ridiculously expensive that it is just an occasional treat – definitely giving this a go.
I have a fish pond. Can the water cress in a protected basket, but without soil?
Hi… you could give this a try as long as the water is not stagnant. You may find that it will work. As long as the water cress has a good supply of minerals from fresh rainwater.
@Dave
I have a small pond with a filter. Planted watercress just downstream of where the water is sent back into the pond from the filter. It’s looking really good at the moment, so I think you should give it a go! And because you’ve got fish in there, there should be a good supply of nutrition.
Some guy I know grows his watercress in fish his pond with the carp etc. He has masses of the stuff. He had so much watercress he threw out two black bags full. I grow mine in a pot and it is pretty good.
@dannny
Maybe he could sell it… where I am. fresh Watercress bunches of say about 3″ (inches) at the base, bunched sell for over a pound.
@Sharron Clemons
It’s probably lack if light, but more importanly – nutrients. Water cress does need some form of nutrient – so just give it a feed with a normal plant food – once a week should be fine – and top up the water every day if gowing in just water.
Does anyone know how to introduce watercress to a fast moving creek? I have some rooted, but don’t know how to hold it in place in the stream. Maybe someone has tried a basket or something that might contain it but not get carried away?
I am very new to growing anything to be honest, but love watercress so thought I would give it a go. I started from seeds and I have now got a few plants growing. I did have a problem with the stalks being really thin, but I took a friends advice and watered regularly with spring water which seems to have worked.
But- today I noticed there are some tiny tiny little worm type things wriggling around on the soil. does anybody know if they will end up eating it, or can I just ignore them?
Does watercress require a certain PH? I took some from a stream 160 km from here, and hope to keep it in a basket in the Yukon River, which flows past my cabin. The Yukon R. is very alkaline (8.3). I am not sure of the PH in the stream where I got it.
Also, I should mention that this stuff grows wild in abundance in this particular stream. The water comes from a spring only 50 meters away, so I do not know where all the nutrients are coming from, but it grows like crazy. Plus, the winters get fairly cold (-35C would be about the coldest, with averages around -15C), and yet it comes back every spring. I guess the stream does not freeze deeper down or somehow the roots survive.
Just thought I’d let you all know. I live in the Yukon Territory in Canada. Where the watercress grows naturally is more temperate than most places up here because it is close to the ocean (Atlin, BC).
Thanks for the info and ideas, and for any feed back re: PH, or thoughts on my plan to put a basket in the river in front of my cabin. Susie
Hi there, very useful – thank you! I have some watercress stalks with roots in a jug on my windowsill at the moment and was wondering how best to plant them up (I just noticed a few roots on some of the stems I bought from the supermarket and stuck them in water to see what would happen). I love watercress but it’s so expensive for a small bag – growing my own should save me a small fortune! The roots are now quite developed, so I’m planning on potting them up & growing them indoors on the kitchen windowsill. Will they carry on growing all year round grow all year or do they die back in the winter – if they die back, will they regrow or will I have to plant new ones? Great site and your pictures are very clear and helpful, thank you.
@Sharron Clemons
As long as they have a good base as in rich compost and watered regularly, they should do well.
Hi I built a fish pond some five years ago and threw in a handful of water cress once the fish and pond plants were established. Since then I have a year-round supply of the stuff and each spring I throw a few arms ful in the compst bin. Once it flowers it comes up every where so if you got to grow, you will have job on your hands to get rid of it.
Jurgen
Very interesting article and great to have the pictures even though the explanation was simple enough to follow. I have heard that you can plant it indoors in a glass bowl with marbles at the base to hold the roots and just water with no compost. I’m going to try both as we were given some fresh watercress with roots from a neighbours stream. This also had some seed heads so that’s my 3rd option. Oh happy days, let the trials begin.
I really had given up on planting watercress. I had tried many ways but to no avail. Your
article really stimulate me and give me the confidence to give it another go cause I love watercress a lot , not only me, my whole family,in fact. Thanks a million. I will go to our local market to buy some watercress tomorrow and get down to the project. wish me luck this time around, ok. once again, thank you very much. fr serene koh
What a great and well written article. Great pictures to help too. My wife and I discovered a large plot of watercress last month, appearing to be growing wild in an Arkansas stream. We revisited the site just yesterday and not a leaf in sight. I guess that it wasn’t as “wild” as we thought. She bought some tonight and I downloaded your article for her to study. I like the fact that you do answer the questions in the comments. Thanks for helping us.