Which of us is not happy with fresh vitamin greens? But in the garden it can be grown only in the summer. Of course, in the store greens are sold at any time of the year, but in terms of quality it will be completely different. You can get natural greens at any time in a simple and affordable way - just grow watercress on the windowsill. How to grow such a salad, and this article will tell.
Useful properties of watercress
Why exactly watercress? The answer to this question is simple - it is a very useful plant that is easily grown on the windowsill.
Watercress is a fragrant green from the type of cabbage. It contains a huge amount of various vitamins, essential oils, ascorbic acid and various useful trace elements.
Regular consumption of watercress in food greatly helps the body, namely:
- boosts immunity;
- cures cough, thanks to alkaloids and resins included in the composition;
- prevents the occurrence of vitamin deficiency and anemia;
- cleanses the bronchi;
- in asthmatics prevents asthma attacks;
- normalizes blood pressure and improves metabolism;
- improves the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
- strengthens the nervous system;
- relieves insomnia;
- helps quit smoking.
In addition, the crushed leaves of this salad are part of homemade ointments, lotions, creams, which significantly reduce acne and make acne marks less noticeable.
Watercress is also loved because of its unusual spicy taste, similar to the taste of horseradish (popularly called it as horseradish).
Despite the huge number of advantages, the plant is unpretentious in care. Therefore, growing watercress on a windowsill all year round is very easy: it grows quickly, does not require special attention, is cold-resistant, shade-tolerant.
Varieties
Today there are three varieties of watercress:
- curly - characterized by a small rosette of leaves (17 cm) and raised, strongly dissected leaves (for example, "openwork").
- sowing - different large outlet (up to 21 cm) and horizontal, wide, whole leaves (for example, "Danish", "fun").
- whole-leafed - differs in large rosette, narrow little-cut leaves (for example "ducat").
Because of its precocity, the Danish watercress is most often found on the windowsill. How to grow it is described below.
What it takes to grow watercress on the windowsill
Serious preliminary preparation and hard-to-reach means for growing watercress will not be required. Initially, you need to choose the most suitable variety and buy seeds. When choosing seeds, it is important to carefully examine the packaging. It should not be dented or torn. It is also important to check the expiration date of the seeds.
Next should prepare:
- Capacity for growing lettuce. Its height should be about 10 cm. As a container, you can use a plastic container, a bowl, bowl, plate, tray or a shallow flower pot.
- Nutrient medium (substrate) for growing. Such a substrate may be cotton wool, cotton pads, foam rubber, gauze, peat or well-shredded wood chips. The substrate can also be replaced with hydrogel.
- Cling film or plastic bag.
- Regular or purchased nutrient soil.
- A mug and a teaspoon.
How to grow watercress on a windowsill? The ways to do this are completely different. Consider the main ones.
Growing watercress in a substrate
It is necessary to take the container and lay on the bottom a suitable substrate with a layer of 1.5-2 cm. After this, the substrate must be moistened with boiled or settled water. If peat or wood shavings are used as a substrate, then it is poured with boiling water to avoid mold.
After the substrate is prepared, you need to take a glass, pour the seeds into it and pour them with water so that the water completely hides the seeds. Thus, each seed will be in its shell.
The seeds should be held in water for several seconds, after which they should be transferred from a glass with a teaspoon to a prepared container with a nutrient medium, and gently spread them in one layer.
To create greenhouse conditions for seeds, the container must be covered with cling film or a plastic bag and placed on a windowsill. It is important to place the jar so that direct sunlight does not fall on it and away from the hot battery. So in a jar of seeds creates a greenhouse effect.
After a day, you need to check the seeds, usually at this time a little hatching sprouts already appear. After another day, good sprouts should appear, then the film is removed.
Caring for this salad is very simple: water it on time, sometimes turn it to the light on the other side (so that the plants grow directly). It is good to spray it with water from a spray bottle. If desired, you can feed the salad with potassium solution or urea. The main thing is not to overdry the soil, since the press salad loves moisture very much, and its lack thins the plants and worsens their taste.
After 1.5-2 weeks, the salad can already be eaten.
... and in the soil
Fertile soil (about 7 cm) should be poured into the container. After that, make even grooves (depth 0.5 cm). The distance between the grooves should be 10-15 cm. The seeds are covered with a thin layer of soil (about 1 cm).
Seeds can also be sown in a chaotic manner - just pour them out of the glass after soaking, level them and cover them with earth.
After this, the container must be covered with a film. If the room is warm enough (20-23 degrees), then you can leave the container without a film.
With this method, the seeds will germinate a little longer (about 2 days), as they germinate through the ground. When the sprouts appear, then the temperature must be reduced to 10-15 degrees. This will help develop a strong root system of the plant and prevents them from stretching.
After seed germination, the plants must be taken care of in the same way as described in the first method.
The most interesting ways to grow watercress
Due to the unpretentiousness of watercress, it is grown anytime, anywhere. Consider some interesting cultivation methods:
- For this method, you don’t need land and a container for growing, and plants do not need daily watering. You need to take a small tea strainer and a cup of water. Seeds are poured into a strainer and watered with warm water (it eventually remains in the cup). After this, the cup with the strainer can be removed on the windowsill, in a week the greens will be ready. Growing in this way has a great advantage - you can eat salad with roots.
- This method is quite common. The salad is grown in a container, the bottom of which is covered with wet gauze. The disadvantage of this method is that it takes a lot of seeds. But these seeds germinate very quickly.
- Growing in an electronic pot. In such a pot, lettuce can be grown all year round, and you don’t need to do anything at all, just pour seeds. True, such a pot is quite expensive.
Methods have been described above how to quickly grow cress on a windowsill. Moreover, they are all quite simple.
Features of the collection of lettuce
How to grow watercress on a windowsill in the winter, we examined, it's time to harvest. This must also be done correctly.
You can cut the salad when the stems grow to 8-9 cm. It is better to do this in the morning or in the evening. Watercress should be eaten fresh, i.e. do not store. It can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a day (preferably in water). If you store the salad for longer than a day, then it quickly turns yellow and remains without its beneficial properties.
When the salad has grown to 13-14 cm, it needs to be cut, and as close to the base as possible. After the salad is cut, the roots will no longer grow, so for continuous harvesting watercress should be sown every 2 weeks.
Secrets: how to grow watercress on the windowsill correctly
- In order for the rosette of leaves to be large, the distance between plants should be at least 5 cm.
- Before sowing, the soil must be well compacted.
- Sow the seeds in succession, about 1 time in 10 days, so that it grows continuously.
- It is important to water on time, as watercress loves moisture.
Thus, we figured out how to grow watercress on the windowsill, so that it is fragrant and extremely useful. This small garden does not require much space, does not require special care, but it brings a lot of pleasure. Incidentally, watercress can be grown both on the windowsill and in the garden.