Nasturtium - The Companion
Botanical Name: Tropaeolum majus
Herbal Actions: Antimicrobial • Urinary Tonic • Expectorant
Parts Used: Flowers • Leaves • Seeds
Concoctions: Culinary Herb • Edible Flowers • Microgreen • Pickled Seeds
Allies: Tomato • Calendula • Rosemary • Thyme
Nasturtium spills through the summer garden with round green leaves and brilliant flowers in shades of yellow, orange, and red. There is something almost playful about the way she grows—trailing over the edges of garden beds, climbing when given something to hold onto, and weaving herself between the vegetables growing nearby.
Despite her common name, nasturtium is not actually a member of the botanical genus Nasturtium, which contains watercress. The garden nasturtium most of us recognize is Tropaeolum majus, a member of the Tropaeolaceae family and a native of South America.
Her confusing name comes from flavor rather than botanical relationship. Early European herbalists thought the plant's peppery taste resembled watercress, once known as Nasturtium officinale. The Latin nasus tortus has been interpreted as “twisted nose”—a reference to the nose-tingling pungency of these plants.
And nasturtium certainly has some bite.
The leaves and flowers are edible and have a fresh, peppery flavor reminiscent of watercress, mustard, or radish. The flowers are beautiful scattered over salads, while the young leaves can be added to sandwiches, chopped into savory dishes, or blended into pesto.
Even the young green seed pods are edible. They have traditionally been pickled in vinegar and used much like capers, giving the plant another old-fashioned name: “poor man's capers.”
That characteristic “pepperiness” tells us something about the plant's chemistry.
Nasturtium contains glucosinolates, plant compounds also found in vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, mustard, kale and horseradish. When the plant tissue is crushed or chewed, these compounds can be transformed into other substances, including isothiocyanates—the compounds responsible for some of the sharp flavor and aroma associated with these plants.
Nasturtium also has a history in traditional herbal medicine, particularly for supporting the respiratory and urinary systems. Preparations made from the fresh plant have traditionally been used during coughs, colds, and urinary complaints. Modern laboratory research has also explored the antimicrobial activity of compounds found within nasturtium, although traditional use and laboratory findings should not be confused with evidence that the plant can treat an infection in place of appropriate medical care.
Her flowers and leaves also contain vitamin C and colorful plant pigments, making nasturtium a lovely example of the place where food and herbalism overlap. Sometimes an herb doesn't need to become a tincture or capsule to become part of our relationship with plants. Sometimes we simply eat it.
Nasturtium is equally interesting outside the herbal medicine cabinet.
She has long been welcomed into vegetable gardens as a companion plant. Her abundant flowers provide nectar and pollen for visiting insects, and gardeners sometimes use nasturtium as a “trap crop,” allowing aphids and certain other pests to gather on her rather than on nearby vegetables. The reality of companion planting is more complex than the idea that one plant simply “protects” another, but growing a diversity of flowering plants can help create habitat for pollinators, predators, and other members of the garden ecosystem.
Which may be one of the loveliest things about nasturtium. She doesn't stand guard over the tomato. She simply grows beside it.
The tomato is still responding to sunlight and water. Bees and other insects are moving between flowers. Roots are reaching into soil filled with organisms we rarely see. Nasturtium is sprawling through the bed. And the gardener is there too—watering, pruning, observing, and participating in this little community of life.
No single part is doing all of the work.
Reflection
A garden makes visible something that can be easy to forget: very little in the living world exists entirely on its own.
Perhaps our nervous systems aren't meant to do everything alone either.
Anxiety can make the world feel uncertain and leave us searching for something solid enough to hold onto. Yet sometimes what helps us settle isn't finally finding certainty. It is realizing that we are supported while uncertainty is still present.
A familiar voice. Someone sitting beside us. A hand to hold. A place where we belong. Even the quiet companionship of an animal, a garden, or the natural world can remind the body that it is not navigating everything alone.
Support doesn't have to remove what is difficult in order to change how we experience it.
Like the nasturtium growing beside the tomato, sometimes the gift is simply having something—or someone—growing beside us.
Where in your own life might support already be growing beside you?
A Note of Caution
Use only nasturtium that has been positively identified as an edible Tropaeolum species and has not been treated with pesticides or other chemicals unsuitable for edible plants.
Nasturtium is generally enjoyed in culinary amounts, but concentrated herbal preparations are different from using a few leaves or flowers as food. People who are pregnant, breastfeeding, taking medications, or managing kidney, gastrointestinal, or other medical conditions should seek appropriate professional guidance before using concentrated nasturtium preparations medicinally.
Symptoms of a urinary tract or respiratory infection that are severe, persistent, or worsening should receive appropriate medical evaluation rather than relying on nasturtium as treatment.
Humans question things. We wonder why something happened, what something means, whether what we have been told is true, and sometimes even about the nature of reality itself.