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Pepper Garden Cress Lepidium Sativum Seeds
Packet of 200+ home grown seeds!
Crazy easy to grow and ideal for folks with limited space. All you need is a pot with dirt, put the seeds to the top of the loosened soil and water well.
Full sun is best, but partial shade is fine too.
They can be cut like wheat grass from about two weeks of growth onwards, but if you want to eventually set seed then it is best to wait a month and only take the tips so the plant can recover and reshoot from the lower branches.
If you want to use them all the time just use a few different pots or a garden bed and stagger your harvests and plantings.
The flavour is really intense and peppery, a lot like traditional watercress with a mild wasabi mustard bite at the end, but much easier to grow especially in warmer drier climates where watercress and wasabi isn’t really an option.
The plant flowers and goes to seed with ease and the seeds themselves are super easy to remove. Just wait until the heads are nice and golden, and a few fall out, then cut the top off chuck them in a bucket for a couple days. Pour it through a strainer and Bob’s your uncle!
This plant is so prolific and easy to grow that it is the main species used by those dodgy Chinese scammers when they advertise blue or rainbow roses, lips psychotria, giant strawberries or all rainbow coloured fruit, or other high value rare species, especially carnivorous, aquatic or succulent species.
Anytime it looks too good to be true and/or it’s from China(or China via Singapore) or has a photoshoped image, or its $1 a packet and the seller is in Australia, but domestic delivery time is ~4-6weeks, or its $10-$20 a packet but the picture is the same used by a Chinese seller, then yeah, despite the price being high and the seller being “local” with an Aussie sounding store name, in my experience there is at least a ~60% chance you will end up with these guys.
The other 40% is Amaranth, Celosia or Chenopodium species…
Not such a bad thing because it is a great plant, just a bummer that there are so many dodgy scamming bastards out there, especially if you were hoping for something really rare..
Despite being common and cheap to produce, you should all really have this guy in your collection anyway.
It tastes great, peppery and hot and considering it’s rapid growth it is quite nutritious averaging about 2.6% protein, 1.1% fiber, 4.4% sugars, 5.5% carbohydrates and lots of other goodies like Vitamin A, beta-carotene, Thiamine (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), Pantothenic acid (B5), Vitamin B6, Folate (B9), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, and Potassium.
In India it is recognized as a medicinal plant and is known as Chandrashoor.
The seeds are called Halloon and in Ayurveda they are used to prevent postnatal complications.
It is also used to reduce the symptoms of asthma and improve lung function in asthmatics, asthma, bronchitis, indigestion, constipation and even bleeding piles.
Many ancient text from Asia and the Mediteranian reference its medicinal properties and it was especially renown as an antiscorbutic, depurative, vermifugal, antihistiminic and stimulant.
Modern science supports its antimicrobial, antihypertensive, antioxidant, antispasmodic, antidiarrheal, antiasthmatic, hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic properties.
When used as a cleansing wash it is said to prevent or halt hairloss, and as part of the regular diet many cultures consider it an aphrodisiac.
Xenophon (400 BC) writes that the ancient Persians used to eat this plant even before bread was known.
Dried chopped and added to milk with a little salt it can be used to make a basic curd cheese called Oxygala, and the seeds themselves can be pressed for oil both for eating and burning in lamps.
There are many common names so I will just list a few.
Cress, common cress, garden cress, land cress, mastuerzo, mastuerzo hortense, lepidio, berro de jardin, berro de sierra, berro hortense, escobilla, morritort, morrisa, masturco, mastruco, agriao mouro, herba do esforzo, mastruco do Sul, agriao, buminka, beatzecrexu, turehtezuk, and of course pepper cress.
There is considerable research into use as a binding agent for the manufacture of pills and capsules, especially for vitamin and health suppliments due to its safety, very easy mass production and its high mucilage content.
Its crushed seeds make a great natural glue for powders.
There you go folks, another beauty that I personally wouldn’t want to do without.
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
