Quick and easy to grow - and gives a fresh salad from spring though to late winter. Summer crops run to seed fast, and can be very peppery; use a few leaves to liven up a lettuce salad; cooler season crops are a lot less pungent, and can be the main greenery in a salad bowl - or wrapped around a cube of feta cheese!
How to
- Sow in succession, from early spring through to early autumn, in drills or broadcast.
- Thin growing plants to about 6 inches apart. Keep well-watered, particularly in summer.
- You can either pick individual leaves from single plants, or cut seedlings back when they're about 3 inches high (they'll grow back 3 or 4 times), or cut the whole plant before it runs to seed.
- Beware - it will self-seed very freely!
Growing Calendar - Rocket
Timings are based on my allotment in Yorkshire; southerners will start earlier, northerners even later!
Can fit anywhere in your rotation.