Vegetable · Brassicaceae
When to plant cress
Two weeks from sowing to cutting makes cress the fastest thing in the garden and the only crop worth sowing when you have run out of patience.
Sow direct
4 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
14-21
From sowing to a first picking.
Frost tolerance
Half hardy
How much cold the plant itself will take.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make cress plantable anywhere.
- Sow direct 4 weeks before the last frost.
- Expect 14–21 days to maturity, counted from sowing.
- Sow again every 7 days for a continuous supply.
Getting the timing right
Sow thickly every week from four weeks before the last frost. It needs no space, no depth and no waiting, so it fills the edges of beds all season.
Frost tolerance
Damaged below about -3C, but the crop is over so quickly that frost rarely gets the chance to reach it.
Classified as half-hardy, with damage expected below -3°C (26.6°F)26.6°F (-3°C).