just realized the stuff choking my stream is watercress....by the bushelful.
I don't know anything about it other than you make finger sandwiches for high tea using it.
Will you share what you know? Recipes, growth, harvesting, storage, esoterica?
Thanks!
Watercress?
Water cress can be use as salads with sesame oil dressing. Try this recipe: Chicken water cress soup. cut up chicken preferably cubed chicken breast, fresh ginger, sweet onions, low sodium soysauce, salt and pepper to taste, one can chicken broth. Brown cut up onions and ginger with olive oil, add chicken and saute till brown, add soy sauce, salt and pepper, chicken broth and equal parts of water. Simmer for 15 minutes and add cup up water cress before serving. Do not overcook cress. Serve warm. Enjoy!! Bellie
Is watercress safe to use in possibly contaminated water. I seem to remember something that you can't even wash off contaminants. Is this possible??
Pat
I guess anything is possible, and I can't do much to test a stream.
However, it runs down right out of a protected area, no houses, and the POND it feeds is supporting fish, turtles and frogs.
It's probably as ok as anything else it.
Still, it's a good thing to take into consideration, so thanks. : )
Edited to change from stream to pond, because obviously I had not had enough coffee at that point.
This message was edited Jan 13, 2007 5:27 PM
Hate to jump in here, and beg. I have been looking for watercress. and wouldn't mind, paying shipping. Would like to try it in our pond. Of course not till spring. It is 11 degrees F, right now tomorrow is to be colder. Thanks. R
If you tell me what to do and how and when to do it, I'd be happy to send some. No worries!
I've used it as my winter water-filter for several years (it can't take the heat here, and dies out in the summer). In the fall, I just get it at the grocery store in the produce department, and stick it in the pond. Within a few days it gets roots and takes off. By spring it's thick. When it gets out of hand, I pull it out, give some to the rabbit, and compost the rest. I've had it down to the upper 20s no problem. We rarely get any colder than that, but it's hardier than my parrot's feather, which really took a hit this year.
Think I'd better check the zone hardeness. for it. Not much of the floating plants will survive, 20 to 30 below.
Right now the pond is all ice covered except a tiny hole. I can see the water moving under the ice.
It was 15 below night before last. Ice is thick enough I could walk on it.
Thanks for the input.
Russ
Hey, Luna_baby does it look like this when it blooms? Someone in our local water garden society gave us some. He uses it as a filter medium, also. It naturalized in an artifical pond that I volunteer to do work on. That pond has a walkway between two pond areas that the water constantly flows through. I recently bought some at our local grocery store that had roots on it. Hubby has a little pond set-up in greenhouse and he placed it in the waterfall area and said it still looked good after two weeks in there.
Deborah
Yep, that's it.
Will watercress grow without flowing water? We have a still pond and I have been told it needs a source of running water nearby to grow.
Pops up in the ground for me and I have it growing in a still pocket of the pond where I've stop the flow for the winter, doing just fine.
If you go to Google, you can find a bunch of recipes for it at Hairspring Watercress. I've noticed two spellings of water cress and watercress so I guess they are both acceptable.
Watercress is suppose to be a member of the cabbage family. One article I read said there are suppose to be two varieties and a hybrid from those two. I have noticed there are lots of plants with cress as part of the name.
Thanks, azreno. I'll pop some in the pond.
Do you think I could grow it in a glass of water under grow lights until the weather warmed up enough to put it in the little "whiskey barrel" water garden I'm planning for this spring? We're still in the teens and flirting with single digits at night.
Interesting thought about using it as the biofilter media. I am just beginning to research building a pond in our back yard. Dreaming of a back-hoe attachment for my tractor...
I think you could start an unrooted piece inside and keep it until you warm up some, no problem. Watercress is one of the better filtering plants, tons of feeding roots.
I know you can root it in water; however, I thought you had to have water flowing to keep it going or it would just fall over and rot.
Let me know how your whiskey barrel enviroment does.
I was reading that watercress in the wild can carry microscopic snails which in turn can carry flukes that can attack your liver. It's always something, huh?
Good grief! It's amazing we've survived as a species!