Courtesy Rick Gush
I found cultivated arugula seeds densly , so I can glean seedlings in early declivity .
It ’s the changing of the season now , and this mean that we ’ll switch over Eruca vesicaria sativa type for the next six months . We ’ve been eat up wild garden rocket since last April , and now , we ’ll jump feed the train type .
It would be an understatement to say that the wild stuff reseeds itself . I did plant some wild Eruca sativa six or seven years ago , but since then , every outpouring a whole bunch of new waste roquette plants kill up all over the garden . I rend out most of them , but let a few patches remain in places where they do n’t interfere with the other plantings . In general , the unfounded arugula spring up in either full sun or partial , but the plant life that originate in fond sunlight produce the big folio . Not only are the handsome leaves easier to glean , they ’re also crunchier .
The cultivated Eruca vesicaria sativa , on the other hand , does good when planted in full sun during the cold-blooded months . It will grow in shadier floater , but the plants in the full sunshine make the biggest and crunchiest leaves .
One trick I use to get harvestable Eruca sativa before in fall is to sow some country quite thickly and then use scissors to glean whole handfuls of the seedlings . The bottom in the photo above is such a bed . I seeded it about two weeks ago , and we ’ll be capable to reap really nice bunches of juvenile leaves in another week or so .
I plant cultivated arugula seeds densly, so I can harvest seedlings in early fall.
Photo by Rick Gush
Wild garden rocket ’s has more pointed leaves than cutivated arugula .
The botanical name of the tame arugula isEruca sativa . It ’s a fellow member of the Brassicaceae family , like cabbages and the mustards . crazy Eruca sativa isDiplotaxis tenuifolia , also in the same household . There are a few different cultivars or subspecies for theErucas , but here in Italy , thesativaseems to be the more common . The photo to the right wing show a wild rocket salad seedling . It ’s easy to differentiate the two type , as the naturalize type has much more rounded lobe , while the wild type can be quite pointed . Both types are native to the Mediterranean and European sphere , but theDiplotaxisis the more mutual weed .
My English friends here all call these plants “ Rocket ” or “ Roquette . ” The Italians call both typesruccola , and they wipe out a lot of it . There ’s scarcely a day during the year when the local vegetable trafficker at the market place in Rapallo are n’t selling Ralph Bunche ofruccola . A small-scale bunch , about one fistful of leaves , commonly costs about one euro per clustering . That might go like a pile , but consider that each folio is find fault singly , it ’s a reasonable price for all that oeuvre .
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