Last edited on 2 Nov 2026. View history
Garden Cress
Garden Cress
A variety of cress
How to sow garden cress: sow seeds. seeding every two weeks is possible
Sun requirement for garden cress: Plant in Full Sun
A cool-season salad cress, sometimes known as Lebanese cress, with a tasty, sweet and quite light flavour. Self seeds prolifically and is picked a leaf at a time over a long period. A rare variety from the Harrington collection in Southland, said to be the only line in New Zealand. Sow in trays in early autumn and early spring, prick out at 2.5 cm and transplant at 6 cm high at 20 cm diagonal spacing.
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Garden cress facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For garden cress, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 3°C and a shortest growing cycle of 10 days at its best temperature, about 145 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your garden cress will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Lepidium sativum L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Capparales Cruciferae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | shallow (20-50 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours) |
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