How to grow watercress (the easy-peasy way)

Hello Friends,

I was in the veggie garden early this morning, watering & chivvying a grumpy courgette plant, & I spotted that the watercress was well ready for a substantial haircut. We've plenty of salad at the moment, so I decided to make it into soup. Several people seem surprised that I grow watercress in the garden, but it is very easy. It's a myth that all watercress-growing requires a stream, or any kind of special conditions. All it actually requires is the following bit of kit:

*1 old washing-up bowl (If you've got an old skankrous one you don't want to send to landfill, perfect!)

*2 plastic flower pots (as big as you can cram inside the bowl)

*Potting compost

*1 pack of watercress seed ('Aqua' is the usual variety)

There is no mystery to this. Fill the pots with compost up to about 2 cms from the top & water it well. Sprinkle on the watercress seed. Cover it with a fairly thin layer of compost & water again, gently this time, so that you are not spraying the seeds straight out again. Now stand the pots in the washing-up bowl & fill the bowl with water so that it comes about two thirds of the way up the sides of the pot. This is your mini-watercress farm. Stand it somewhere sunny, but not in daylong full glare of the sun.

If you have naughty blackbirds who beak up your seeds looking for critters, you might need to commandeer something like this to protect them........

 

That's all there is to it. The seedlings will emerge & you will be surprised how tiny they are, but have faith because they will grow into a rather lush bowl of watercress. To start with, just cut the occasional few sprigs, & as the plants grow bigger, cut more frequently. Provided you don't cut the stems too near the roots, they will grow back & provide plenty of cuts. As the weather warms up, you may start to see little white flowers appearing. It's best to snip them off, as the plant will start to concentrate on setting seed rather than continuing to provide you with leaves.

If you tire of watercress sandwiches, scones & salads, and your watercress farm looks like it could do with rejuvenating, cut it back to about 4 cms & water well to give it a chance to regrow. In the meantime, use the big bunch you've just cut off to make some soup.

I barely bother to look at a recipe for soups these days, but I do know that most of my 'green' soups were originally based on recipes from the old 'Crank's' vegetarian cookbook, published in the early 80s. I have adapted them over the years & this is how I make watercress soup:

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 vegetable stock cube made up with 3/4 pint boiling water

1 large bunch watercress (leaves & stems, of course!)

2 small to medium onions (chopped)

1 potato (I use a modest baking potato size, so about 8oz) (roughly chopped)

3/4 pint skimmed or semi-skimmed milk (can make up powdered milk if you are being economical)

salt & black pepper

Method (such as it is......)

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan, add the onion & cook until softened. Add the potato, watercress, stock & milk & bring to the boil. Cover & simmer it for 20 mins or until the potato is soft. 

Don't be alarmed if the milk goes a bit Mount Etna & seems to split. This is quite normal. At the end of the 20 mins, remove from heat, cool slightly, season to taste, before blitzing with a stick blender into a beautiful smooth, pale green summery soup. If you are feeling a bit 'Oooh, get me, aren't I a fancypants', then add a swirl of cream when serving. This quantity serves 3 or 4 people (fewer if one of them is my husband) and freezes very well.

So, if you have never tried growing watercress because you don't live in the sort of property which has its own freshwater stream trickling through the garden, despair not! One old washing-up bowl, 2 plastic flower pots & a bit of potting compost is all you need to start your own mini-farm. I sow my first seeds in April, but have also sown again around now (July) to give me some watercress for picking through the autumn. If you only have a balcony, you can grow it......you can even sit the bowl on your back doorstep, as long as it sees some sunshine. Seeds are not expensive, as you will get a good few cuts for salad plus some soup, & you can feel a smug glow that you are not buying bagged supermarket watercress in a non-recyclable plastic bag full of gas.

That's all from me, but for fans of Albert Whiskers, I thought I'd include the latest high-octane action shot.......

........well, to be fair, he IS almost vertical in this one. He's supposed to be testing some new cat treats for a market research project at the moment. Suffice it to say that after the first few mouthfuls, he cottoned on to the fact that they are not his Brand of Choice & the remainder of the evening's testers were left strewn on the floor. I tried to pick them up this morning but they crumbled to mush.....clearly he'd been back & licked them all (ewwww....) but still concluded they weren't up t'job!  OK, well, I had better sign off this post & get on with today's mighty job list.

Until  next time,

C x