I think of Nasturtium as an ornamental, annual, flowering plant but my vegetarian children take a different view. For many vegetarians ‘Nasturtiums make a salad’. In the case of Watercress they also make a soup and a vegetable.

Growing Nasturtium Leaves, Flowers and Seed Pods

• Grow Nasturtiums from seed in your vegetable patch.
• Rich soil will encourage leaves at the expense of flowers. Nasturtiums grown for decoration need a poor soil.
• Nasturtium seeds from Thompson & Morgan
• Before planting Nasturtiums in containers make sure they are well rooted in smaller pots started under cover.
• Watercress Nasturtium Microphyllum or Nasturtium Officionale are best grown from rooted cuttings. Rooting in water is relatively easy.

Eating Nasturtium Leaves and Pods

• The leaves of the nasturtium plant are edible, with a peppery flavour. They can be tossed into salads mixed with sweeter varieties of lettuce.
• The flowers make a unique garnish to fresh foods and add a splash of colour.
• The seed pods can be treated like Capers and pickled or used as a crunchy addition to salads.
• For tastiest nasturtium leaves, keep the plants well watered, which helps to moderate the spiciness of the leaves and flowers. Keep a bit drier to add a sharper tangy flavour to your summer salads

Growing Watercress Nasturtium Officinale

• Watercress is called Nasturtium Officinale or Nasturtium Microphyllum
• Watercress is traditionally grown in gardens with chalk streams or a good supply of water as a semi-aquatic plant
• Buy watercress with roots on at your local supermarket
• An ordinary bunch placed in a bowl of fresh clean water will develop roots. Discard any that turn yellow or do not root and plant the rest.
• You can grow watercress in a container but keep it exceptionally well watered.

Tip
Growing Nasturtiums near Brassicas can deflect greenfly and white fly on to the nasturtiums to protect your other crops.
Pickling the seed pods of Nasturtium produces a crop similar to Capers.

Credits
Nasturtium by Dvortygirl CC BY-SA 2.0
Salad: Watercress, spinach and apple. by ulterior epicure CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
nasturtiums by artolog CC BY-NC 2.0
chicken watercress salad by aquino.paolo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Nasturtium-FowlersVacola-Num10-9108 by graibeard CC BY-SA 2.0 Pickled Nasturtium seeds look like and taste similar to capers.
Nasturtiums by robynejay CC BY-SA 2.0