Cress By: Team Sasquatch

Garden Cress (Lepidium sativum) Garden cress is a fast-growing, edible herb that is botanically related to watercress and mustard, sharing their peppery, tangy flavor and aroma. In some regions, garden cress is known as garden pepper cress, pepper grass, pepperwort or poor man's pepper. This annual plant can reach a height of 60 cm (~24 inches), with many branches on the upper part. The white to pinkish flowers are only 2 mm (1/12th of an inch) across, clustered in branched racemes.

Growth During Experiment  The growth of the plants in both containers grew steadily.  No plants disappeared or died.  Cloth plants grew slowly, whereas the plants under the plastic grew rapidly.

Problem and Hypothesis  The problem to solve in this experiment is:  We are trying to promote gardens to Charlottesville and we would like to add year-round gardens to our campaign. We are trying to figure out if plants (such as cress) grow better under cloth or plastic.

Data Table WEEKS Plant 1 Plant 2 Plant 3 Plant 4 Plant 5 Plant 6 1st 2 nd - Plastic- Cloth- Cloth rd - Plastic- Cloth th - Plastic Cloth th - Plastic Cloth

Graph

Analysis  Analysis:  In our first week we lost the measurements (so the data is unknown and we apologize for our immaturity) in the second week no plants were dead in both shelters and the plastic covering GC (Garden Cress) shot up whereas the cloth covering GC made a slight growth. In the 3rd week the plastic covering GC continued to grow up at a astounding rate whereas the cloth-covered GC seemed to grow a little. In the 4th week the GC under the plastic covering shot up yet. The 5th week the GC under the cloth grew a little more and the GC grew a little during the final stretch.

Conclusion  Conclusion:  The Garden Cress grew way better under the plastic than the cloth, as my hypothesis predicted. People who want to grow winter gardens with Garden Cress in hand should use plastic covering for maximum growth.

Future Experimentation  Ideas for Future Experimentation  For future experiments I think planting a little more and seeing how they do together in big quantities like a person would grow them in real life (if they liked it.) Also I think maybe we could try and see how different plants work together in a grid for possible maximum growth.