Grow cress salad at home

Cress salad is a garden crop, which is quite popular among the owners of summer cottages. And it's not for nothing that the plant has peculiar taste qualities - it has a spicy, slightly bitter taste that makes it an excellent base for many salads and seasoning for a variety of meat, fish and first courses. This salad is able even to turn the most simple dish into a culinary masterpiece, to improve the taste of omelets, eggs or boiled potatoes. Cress-salad - a dietary product, which is indispensable for those who can not get rid of excess weight.

Since ancient times the culture is known for its amazing healing qualities. Ancient Romans, Egyptians and Greeks widely used this useful plant for the treatment of a variety of diseases. Following the advice of traditional medicine, it must be used to increase appetite, with diseases of the digestive system, as well as with anemia and increased pressure. This is an excellent remedy for overcoming spring-autumn berries, since a lot of useful microelements (magnesium, calcium, iodine, iron, and also vitamins of group B, C, A), which are so necessary for maintaining normal vital activity, are contained in the cress-salad. Moreover, modern medicine has discovered in the salad leaves special substances - indoles, which ensure the integrity of the structure of blood cells, and thereby several times reduce the risk of oncology. However, it must be taken into account that it should not be eaten by colic, duodenitis or gastritis.

Salad-cress is an excellent culture for beginners, because he is completely unpretentious to growing conditions. It is early and resistant to low temperatures. It can easily be grown even on the windowsill of the apartment.

In this case, such varieties as broad-leaved, curly, ordinary or peppery are ideal. It should be noted that the watercress on the windowsill should be grown on the north-eastern side, in a sunny place, as the plant does not tolerate the lack of lighting - it discards part of the leaves and stretches. The temperature in the room should not exceed 12 C, otherwise the watercress will throw out the flower stalk and lose its unique taste qualities.

You will need a soil mixture (for example, "Biogrunt"), which needs to fill the box by about 10 cm and slightly tamper with it. When growing watercress in the open ground it is better to plant it on light, fertile soils with a row spacing of 20 to 40 cm. It is necessary to sow the plant to a depth of about 1 cm at the rate of 2 g of seeds per 10 cm2 of soil. Thus, you will get squat plants with large leaves.

Surprisingly, the watercress can do without land. As a filler suitable for flax, tightly laid paper towels (napkins), gauze or cotton wool.

The first shoots of the plant will give after 5-7 days, and the leaves will appear about the 2nd week. The process can be accelerated by providing round-the-clock lighting.

Abundant watering is all that a cress salad needs. No additional feeding is necessary. Mineral fertilizers can be introduced only after cutting the first leaves, in order to get a faster yield.

At home, the culture can be grown all year round, and in the warm season, move the boxes with watercress to the loggia or balcony. However, the most suitable time for planting seeds is September or March. To constantly receive green leaves, it is worth sowing salad every 15 days. The plant multiplies seeds, which mature about 60 days after the first shoots appeared.

Cultivate watercress on the windowsill and please yourself and your family with fresh and healthy herbs!