Cress is ideal if you want to replant harvested beds in the garden for a short time. The delicious herb grows extremely fast and forms dense carpets that optimally protect the soil.

Cress is an ideal cover crop

Every hobby gardener tries to plant all vegetable beds continuously. This prevents the soil from being washed out by rain and weeds from growing.

Cress is the ideal catch crop to sow the ground outdoors for a short time. It's growing so fast you can almost watch it.

The leaves of the cress form a dense carpet that protects the soil from erosion and also prevents weeds from emerging.

Simply dig under cress after harvest

As soon as the cress has formed several pairs of leaves, it can be harvested. The stems are cut off as low as possible.

The roots remain in the ground and slowly decay there. This loosens the soil well and provides it with additional nutrients.

If you can't harvest all the cress because you've just seeded too much, simply dig up the seedlings before reseeding the bed.

The advantage of cress over green manure plants

A number of green manure plants are available to amateur gardeners. This includes:

  • Phacelia
  • lupine
  • mustard
  • oil radish
  • cress

The advantage of cress as a cover crop is that the herb grows much faster and can also be sown at the beginning of autumn.

In contrast to other catch crops, the cress leaves can be used as a spice in the kitchen to refine salads, quark dishes and sandwiches.

Sow watercress as a cover crop

Sow watercress on wetter soil. It forms larger leaves and thus offers greater protection for the soil. However, this type of cress needs more moisture than garden cress. You may need to water them more frequently.

tips and tricks

Feel free to use cress as marker seed. If you sow plants that take a long time to germinate, bed care is not easy. The cress seeds sprout within two to three days, so you can clearly see the rows. By the time the actual seed can be seen, the cress has long since been harvested.

Category:

Vegetable garden