Garlic cress (Peltaria alliacea) is an evergreen, ground-covering wild plant with a flavor of cress, mustard and toasted garlic. It’s quite rare to see. I’ve grown it since 2017 and it has become one of our favorite seasoning plants, esp. as it is green in winter. I think it has a lot of potential.
It’s nearest relative is Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), another wild cress that I find much stronger and fiery. So not only is Peltaria alliacea milder and sweeter, it is also perennial, easy to grow and is one of the few plants I know in the Brassicaceae that spreads by rhizomes, which means it can both ground-cover and is very easy to propagate vegetatively.
Early april:
In fact, the plant seems to have been propagated in that way so much that most of the plants going around in Europe seems to be the same clone. This is a problem for me. I want to domesticate and adapt this plant. For years, I have not been able to get seed from it because it seems to be self-incompatible. So first step in domestication has been to rejuvenate the plant’s ability to set seed.
In full flower early June
In recent years, I managed to get some different genetics into my stand through some other clone and the plants now seem to produce some seed of which I’ve grown the first couple of seedlings and planted them into the stand again. Over time, pollination should improve in the stand as there are more and more different clones there.
This year I’ve gotten the best seed crop so far with clearly viable seed.
The plant is native to Southern Austria around Schneeberg as well as Slovenia, Hungary, Rumania and has naturalized somewhat (not exactly sure how much) in the UK. Grows in forest edges and stony hills. If anyone has access to seed of this plant, I would obviously be interested in swapping.
