Saving Cress Seed

This post is part of my series on saving cut flower seeds.

Please see the Save Your Own Cut Flowers post about methods for selecting, harvesting, processing, and storing your seeds!

Cress aka Peppergrass

Lepidium sativum, L. ruderale, L. setatum (?)

I usually only gather seed from cress at the very end of the season (no, I mean like March of the next year) from any dried stems I haven’t used in dried wreaths or bouquets. It’s very productive in seed so only a few bunches will do you right! For dried cuts I actually let my cress bloom out, make seed, and dry in the field, because it gets that naturally sun-bleached color. If you dry cress in the shade for cuts it will stay green. Anyway, once it’s dry, cut yourself some stems, dry them upside down for a few days (a hoop house is a great place for this, and no need to bag them as they don’t burst). Then strip the stems into a labeled bucket. Bada bing, bada boom.

After stripping into the bucket, pass your batch through your screens and winnow to remove light material. You should get a good amount of seed that will be much less expensive than buying it in and will germinate like a dream. Store in a freezer if you have space, or in a cool dark place that has a stable temperature.

*Footnote Alert!*

Remember, there are several species of cress! The one I like best is the ‘Persian’ variety from Johnny’s, which is Lepidium sativum. If you grow ‘Wrinkled Crinkled’, well, it’s exactly the same thing as far as I can tell (same species, same habit, probably just different names for different markets). ‘Attraxa’ has more rounded pods but is also L. sativum, so “keep it separated” as the song goes. That’s right, I’m an 80s baby. L. ruderale, aka peppergrass, sold as ‘Green Dragon’, however, should pose no problems.

Floret sells a variety that’s labeled L. setatum, ‘Emerald Beads’, but I can’t find more information about that species online, even on Wikipedia (it’s not listed). Floret also sells ‘Green Dragon’ and lists it as Lepidium spp. (generally in the genus Lepidium). ‘Emerald Beads’ and ‘Green Dragon’ are also sold by Danziger, who lists ‘Emerald Beads’ as L. ruderale. No species name is listed on Danziger for ‘Green Dragon’. So I dunno what to tell ya there. Best to let only one variety at a time go to flower and set seed.

I’ve also recently found a weird cress-looking thing in the ditches and saved some seed from it; I'm calling it ‘Chandelier’ cress. We’ll see how that goes; maybe a local botanist can help me find its real name, but for now I just want to be fancy.

Learn more about seed saving and other gardening topics in my workshops!

Cress seed waiting to be winnowed.

Hanging cress to dry in a hoop house ensures lots of light so it will bleach out. You can also let it dry on the plant in the field, if you don’t get lots of rain.

A happy farmer and her bumper crop of cress :)

Dried cress is so beautiful. This is also the right stage to harvest for seed.