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Despite its tropical origin, nasturtium is easy to grow in the home garden and delights us in summer with its colorful splendor and rich harvest.
Nasturtiums from South America form a family of their own, but in Europe the large nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) has become established. Since it is very sensitive to cool temperatures, it is grown as an annual. Nevertheless, the nasturtium brings joy to the hobby gardener in different ways: on the one hand with its fresh, spicy-hot tasting leaves and on the other hand it covers the summer garden with a never-ending splendor of flowers in warm yellow and orange tones, which are wonderfully used as edible decoration leave.
These tips make it easy to grow this exotic beauty:
- Location: Nasturtium prefers a sunny or half-shady site and humus-rich, well drained soil. Waterlogging should be avoided. If you have a lot of space, you can let the long shoots crawl and grow on the ground, but they will just as readily storm the trellis provided. However, there are also cress types and varieties with a less strong urge to spread, which are particularly suitable for balconies and terraces.
- Sowing: Since nasturtium is very sensitive to cold temperatures, outdoor sowing should only be started after the ice saints. For pre-cultivation, seeds can be sown indoors from mid-April. Fall is the perfect time to collect seeds for your own plants for the next gardening season.
- Watering and fertilizing: Despite its tropical origin, nasturtium is an easy-care plant that only needs to be watered during longer dry periods and lightly fertilized in spring. Too much fertilizer reduces the willingness to bloom. Therefore, an organic fertilizer should be used that slowly and gently releases its nutrients to the nasturtium. Our primarily organic Plantura organic universal fertilizer optimally meets these requirements.
- Pruning: Nasturtium does not need regular trimmingsPruning measures, but their sprawling growth can easily be slowed down by a cut.
- Overwintering: Since nasturtium is very sensitive to cold, has a great urge to spread and is easy to grow from seed, it is cultivated as an annual in our latitudes and is therefore not overwintered.
- Harvest: The aromatic leaves can be harvested all year round, and the buds, flowers and seed pods are also edible.
Although the nasturtium and the garden cress are similar both in taste and name, the two plants are not related to each other. In our special article you will find everything you need to know about garden cress.