Anyone grow watercress?

[Nyboy]

Was watching some videos on youtube about watercress. It is very high in vitamins,seems easy to grow. I have a pond and stream, is watercress invasive in zone 5? Thanks

 

[Carol Dee]

Mmm Water cress. We had a good friend that once owned a farm north of use a bit. I think Zone five. It had watercress in a COLD spring feed stream , it seemed to always just be in that one place. So I don't think it got invasive. (I was always told to only use it in months with an R in them!)

 

[digitS']

It may depend on what you mean by "invasive," NYboy.

A lot of the streams around here, that are in lower elevations and catch a fair amount of sun, have watercress in them. When the water is low, you may not even see it beneath the plants. This growth could be okay if it is your stream and you are interested in eating that water cress.

I've related this story on here before but the neighbor had a leaky valve into his 4" water main that ran by my garden. When there was no pressure in that pipe it would leak and leak at one place. I asked, he said it was okay - so, I ran a 2" pvc pipe over to my garden. It was only a distance of about 6 or 8 feet. In the garden, I dug out part of a bed so that I had a shallow pool about 4 or 6 inches deep with the soil built up around it. It was only about 4' by 6' and drained easily because of the rocky soil. That leaky pipe, however, kept it full of water.

It would sometimes run dry when sprinklers were being run elsewhere and the pressure in the pipe shut down the leak. But, the watercress I had growing in that pool didn't seem to mind that. I got the starts just by putting watercress purchased at the soopermarket in there. They did fine !

The next year, the neighbor replaced that valve and my watercress growing came to an end.

Steve

 

[NwMtGardener]

Haha, i did the same thing as Steve one year that i had a decorative water feature, just plunked some grocery store watercress in it. It did great there, grew all summer, but turned out i wasnt that fond of the taste of it. It was pretty though!

 

[rebbetzin]

I am here in a very HOT DRY climate, and I grow watercress. In a wide, shallow clay pot with a saucer to keep the roots moist. I buy the watercress at the health food store, it comes in a pot with the root system. I put it in Miracle Grow Moisture Control Potting soil and it grows very nicely in the shade all year long.

 

[Nyboy]

I wonder if the chickens would eat it they love duck weed,

 

[vfem]

I got watercress seed and I'm growing it on sponges in the kitchen so we just eat the sprouts on salad. Our pond drained from damage to the dam's drain pipe so we can't grow to size right now anyways.

I don't know if its invasive here, but duck weed sure grows like weeds... even when you have tons of ducks to eat it!!!

 

[Jared77]

I think duckweed is considered invasive in most states. Don't quote me on that though. Stuff is wicked. Great fish food though too if you have any Koi or goldfish. I used to grow it on all my nursery aquariums when I was breeding Angelfish to help keep the water clean. Plus they shade the light so the babies were not so stressed.