Watercress is great sauteed and served as a side dish, or fresh in salads. It doesn’t like hot weather, and loves water, so it’s difficult to grow here. I never thought about growing it indoors. So it’s my new experiment!
I decided I just wanted to start with plants. I bought some watercress in the vegetable section at Natural Grocer, but I’ve seen it in the large HEB stores. I took a few pieces out and stuck them in a glass of water to root, and cooked and ate the rest. The day after I put the sprigs in water, they were wilted over the sides, and I thought that was the end of it. But I remember using this method with other plants, like Vietnamese cilantro (nothing with woody stems), and sometimes they perk up again. This was one of those times, and in another day, they became upright again, and in a few days, started to root.
After the roots were long enough, I planted them in pea gravel mixed with crushed granite and filled the container with water. I put it in my sunniest windowsill, and now I’m just watching them grow, and keeping the water level high enough for the roots. Watercress loves water, hence the name, so it’s a perfect growing medium for them. I put some crushed granite in the mix, because plants love the minerals from it. I had good intentions of buying a container to plant it in, like a tall clear glass rectangular vase type thing, but it hasn’t happened yet. For now, I’ve used the bottom of a covered serving dish that was the right shape.
