The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Bodger on August 18, 2013, 10:24:44 pm

Title: Watercress.
Post by: Bodger on August 18, 2013, 10:24:44 pm

We love watercress and spend a fortune buying bags of the stuff from the supermarket when it is in season.
For the first time ever, we saw watercress plants for sale at the garden centre (reduced to clear  ;D ) and as I'd recently heard about someone wanting to set up a watercress garden in plastic guttering, we jumped in and bought some.
Just by chance, a few months ago, at the same time as we bought a bigger pump for the stream feature for our pond, there were some tiny pumps designed for indoor water features, that were reduced from £17.99 to £2.49 - bargain and we couldn't NOT buy one, now could we?  :eyelashes:
We decided to put it to good use but that the guttering wasn't practical, so we used a large seed tray that we had bought earlier in the year and hey presto ! Here's our watercress garden..... planted on August 6th.......
 
 
 
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/001-1.jpg) (http://s1200.photobucket.com/user/kcooper2011/media/001-1.jpg.html)
 
 
 
and here it is today...... (with obligatory lurcher  :dog: )
 
 
 
(http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb334/kcooper2011/003-5.jpg) (http://s1200.photobucket.com/user/kcooper2011/media/003-5.jpg.html)
 
 
 
The idea has cost us very little to set up and fingers  :fc: , it seems to be working. If we can do it, so can
you. :farmer:

Title: Re: Watercress.
Post by: shygirl on August 18, 2013, 10:31:46 pm

welldone. if it was my dogs they would be peeing on it.. :roflanim:
we use to live near a watercress farm in hampshire and they had huge beds, acres of them im sure. sold worldwide for high prices!
 :thumbsup:

Title: Re: Watercress.
Post by: Bodger on August 18, 2013, 10:43:42 pm

I don't suppose its this place? My wife and I visited it a few years ago and  it must be where the seed of the idea was sown.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1092582 (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1092582)

Title: Re: Watercress.
Post by: shygirl on August 18, 2013, 11:16:49 pm

no - vitacress.
http://www.vitacress.com/ (http://www.vitacress.com/)

Title: Re: Watercress.
Post by: Bert on August 19, 2013, 07:40:00 am

I was growing watercress in a toilet last year  :thumbsup: . ( I would just like to add at this point that this was not in my garden, it was the hotel veg garden i used to work at, I would put the mr angry icon  here, but can't get any of the extra ones to work). It worked quite well, I filled the toilet with well rotted manure, watered it till it was flowing out the pipe at the back then sowed the seeds. The water get replaced regular, every time it rained or I watered. So it didn't go all stagnant and slimy  ;D .

Title: Re: Watercress.
Post by: Lesley Silvester on August 19, 2013, 10:59:26 pm

I've grown it successfully in a big seed tray.