Plant · P-197

Garden Cress

Lepidium sativum

Garden cress is a fast, peppery salad green whose seeds sprout within a week, making it a reliable indoor tray crop through any season regardless of weather. Beyond the sprouts, the whole plant is edible: leaves, seedpods, root and a seed oil unusually rich in omega-3 fat. It is also, unexpectedly, the most attractive egg-laying target tested for diamondback moth, and its leaves do not kill the resulting larvae, so a stand growing near cabbage-family crops outdoors quietly breeds more moths rather than fewer. Grown indoors as a tray crop, none of that risk applies, and that is where the plant earns its place.