Upland Cress (Land Cress)

Sow upland cress for the cool season

Sow the tiny seed about a half inch deep into a smooth, moist, clod-free bed, either broadcast and raked in or drilled in rows about a foot apart. Sow fairly thick, since the seed is small and you will thin later. Upland cress is extremely hardy and, like spinach, grows best during the coolest months of the year, so a sowing as summer heat breaks carries leaves from fall through winter into spring.

Sow again in spring where winter is too hard

In cold zones sow in early spring once the ground has thawed and the bed can be worked, at the same shallow half inch depth into moist, clod-free soil, and plan to pick the crop before summer heat arrives. The source's rule is that this crop, like spinach, is grown during the coolest months of the year because it is extremely hardy; its own September-to-December window is Florida's version of those months. North of the mild-winter belt the coolest workable window opens in spring instead, so a spring sowing is how cold-zone growers apply the same principle. Spring timing is an adaptation of the sourced cool-season rule, not a date printed in the source, hence medium confidence.

Water regularly, but skip the stream

Give the patch plenty of sun and water it regularly instead of letting the bed swing dry, and keep the surface damp until the shallow-sown seed is up. Creasy greens need very little care once established, but sunshine and regular watering are the two things they do ask for, and seed set a half inch deep will not come up through a surface that crusts dry.

Thin the seedlings once they are up

When the seedlings are big enough to handle, pull the weakest to leave plants about 3 to 6 inches apart in rows roughly a foot apart. Do the same after any spring sowing. The seed is sown thick on purpose to guarantee a stand, and thinning down to the strongest plants is what turns a crowded fuzz of seedlings into full, pickable rosettes.

Scout seedlings for flea beetle shot-holes

Check the patch at least two or three times a week while the plants are small, walking the same route each time and counting beetles on random plants before you judge the leaf damage. Flea beetles colonize a planting fast and cluster once they arrive, and chewing that an established rosette would shrug off can stunt or kill a seedling outright.

⚠ The common extension rule of thumb is treatment at 10 to 20 percent leaf damage, but that is a market-cosmetic standard, and less damage is tolerated on crops sold as leafy greens. On cress the damaged leaf is the thing you eat, so respond with a cover rather than a spray.

Cover new sowings to shut flea beetles out

Lay a fine-mesh insect netting over the bed immediately after sowing, before any beetles find it, and bury or weight every edge so there are no gaps. Cover late-summer and fall sowings the same way. Flea beetles are highly mobile and hit young seedlings hardest, and in trials a properly sealed fine-mesh cover installed at planting has been as effective as conventional insecticides.

⚠ Rotate away from ground that grew brassicas last season before you cover it. Beetles emerging from the soil under a sealed cover are trapped in a sheltered spot with no natural enemies and can do more damage than if the bed were open.

Pick once the rosettes reach four inches

When plants are well established and about four inches high, pick the leaves and leave the stem and roots intact so new ones grow back for later picking. Alternatively take the entire plant at once if you want the bed back. Cress regrows from an undisturbed crown, so picking leaves and leaving the roots turns a single sowing into a long cut-and-come-again supply through the cold months.

Year two: pick before the flower stalk, then let a few bloom

In its second spring the plant throws up a yellow flower stalk. Snip your last leaves as it rises, and leave a few plants standing to flower and seed rather than clearing the whole patch. The greens taste best snipped and eaten before the plant goes to seed, and the yellow flowers left behind feed bees and butterflies early in the year while reseeding the patch for the seasons after.

⚠ Never put an insecticide on cress that is in flower. These are early-season blooms working for bees and butterflies, and there is nothing on a bolted plant worth spraying for.