Sowing Cress: What Should Be Considered?

Simply sow cress in the garden, on the windowsill, or in the kitchen. The undemanding spice herb thrives both indoors and outdoors, in the sun as well as in the shade. Cress also sprouts on almost any substrate. Thanks to these properties, the uncomplicated plant is the ideal introduction to growing your own herbs.

How to sow cress at home

Whether on the kitchen table or the windowsill: You definitely don’t need a garden to grow cress. Provided you follow this step-by-step cress seeding guide.

Choose a container for growing. Almost anything is suitable as a container for sowing cress: from soup plates to cups to clay buckets. Cress can even be sown in egg boxes.

Thoroughly clean the jar. Cress is susceptible to mold spores and bacteria.

Choose your substrate. You can sow cress without soil. Sow cress on kitchen paper, cotton pads, or even paper towels.

Soak the substrate with water and drain off excess liquid.

Scatter the seeds evenly over the substrate and press them down lightly – done!

Important: Keep the seeds evenly moist with a spray bottle until they germinate, but avoid waterlogging! You can grow fresh cress for your hearty potato-cress soup or a spicy herb quark at home all year round. Do you still need culinary inspiration? We tell you everything about using watercress.

How to sow cress in the garden

Do not sow cress in the garden until mid-May. The plant does not like frost and needs at least 15 degrees soil temperature.

For sowing:

• Loosen the soil and scatter the seeds in rows 15 cm apart.
• Alternatively, you can simply scatter the seeds.

Cress makes no demands on the soil. By the way: You can get cress seeds from nurseries, health food stores, and some drugstores.

That’s why cress doesn’t grow back

Why is it that cress does not grow back, but has to be sown again after the harvest? Very simple: The so-called growth point is crucial for this process. And unfortunately, it is removed when the herb is harvested. The point is high up directly under the leaves and not near the ground like with dill and co.