- Arugula cultivation: perfect for beginners!
- Variety: spoiled for choice between wild rocket and salad rocket
- Harvest and storage of arugula
- Diseases and Pests
- Ingredients and uses in the kitchen
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Arugula: great taste and he althy! With our tips, you can easily grow the easy-care salad greens in your garden.
The Italian term rocket has also become common in our country. However, two closely related plant genera hide behind the name. Common rocket salad (Eruca sativa) can usually be found on local vegetable shelves. Wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) is sometimes sold as rocket, but its leaves are smaller and more narrowly pinnate than the common rocket. While the salad rocket is usually only cultivated once a year, the wild rocket can be grown for several years.
Even the Germanic tribes appreciated the wild plant and, according to tradition, they brought it to northern Italy during their raids. While the rocket was forgotten in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it spread rapidly in Italy and parts of France. It wasn't until the 20th and 21st centuries, when Italian cuisine became a trend in Germany, that rocket returned to our local menu.
Synonyms: Rauke, Rukola, Garten-Senrauke, Ruke, rocket (engl.), arugula (engl.)
Arugula cultivation: perfect for beginners!
Both the salad rocket and the wild rocket can be grown in the garden without any problems. It is a very grateful and easy-care plant. Since the former is a bit more common among home gardeners and is fast-growing, we will focus on this in the following.
Rucola prefers a nutrient-rich, loose, humus-rich soil. Poor and dry soil should be improved with compost. This increases both the nutrient content and the ability to retain moisture. Alternatively, you can also use a pre-fertilized soil such as our Plantura organic universal soil. Sunny to partially shaded locations are well suited.
Arugula can be planted out in spring. If you still have a bright window sill, you can sow here from mid-March. The young plants can be released outdoors from mid-April. On the windowsill, the young seedlings can be harvested and processed in a similar way to garden cress. In the open airis sown in warmer regions from the end of March, otherwise from the beginning of April. The distance between the plants is about 5 cm for salad rocket and 15 cm for wild rocket. The row spacing should be about 15-20 cm. If the soil is always kept moist, the seeds will germinate in sufficiently warm weather after 10 to 16 days. Even if arugula sprout again after a careful harvest and can thus be harvested several times, subsequent sowing should be carried out at intervals of one month.
Even if rocket grows slowly at first, it should not be fertilized excessively. After a few weeks, salad rocket grows very quickly and can soon be harvested for the first time. To prevent an excessively high nitrate content, you should work with a low-nitrogen fertilizer such as our Plantura organic tomato fertilizer. While arugula doesn't need a lot of water, it can quickly suffer from water shortage stress during a long drought. With arugula, drought-induced stress causes the plant to start flowering. Unfortunately, the harvest also ends at the time of flowering.
It is important that weeds are regularly weeded so that they do not overgrow the small rocket plants.
You can find detailed step-by-step instructions here: Growing arugula: sowing, care and harvest time.
Variety: spoiled for choice between wild rocket and salad rocket
You can find a comprehensive overview of varieties here: Rocket varieties: Overview of varieties of wild rocket and rocket salad.
Wild Rocket
- Dragons Tongue: Breeding from England that has proven to be very robust in different growing conditions; around the leaf veins, the leaf green turns reddish in places; very good and spicy aroma.
- Venicia: fast-growing selection of wild rocket with a late flowering time; this allows for a long harvest and high yields; typical nutty and spicy taste.
- Napoli: selection of wild rocket; grows faster than the wild form and produces broader leaves (could also be a hybrid with rocket salad); high yield.
Arugula
- Speedy: as the name suggests, a presumably fast-growing hybrid of wild rocket and salad rocket; spicy and piquant aroma; Suitable for outdoor cultivation as well as on the windowsill.
- Coltivata: fast-growing, robust andbroad-leaved cultivar of rocket salad; popular in Italy because of the very good aroma.
- Pronto: modern cultivated form of rocket rocket with very fast growth; good taste.
- Buzzy: a variety mostly used to make arugula sprouts.
- Wildfire: new variety with broad, light green leaves; In terms of taste, Wildfire is said to be quite spicy and slightly reminiscent of Japanese wasabi.
- Sylvetta: fast-growing variety with fine leaves and an early flowering time; good, slightly nutty aroma.
Note: The "Agano" variety is often sold as a red-leaved variety of wild rocket, but belongs to the brown mustard (Brassica juncea ).
Harvest and storage of arugula
Depending on the location and the season, the harvest can begin after four to a maximum of seven weeks. At this time, the leaves are mostly five to eight centimeters long. If you want to protect the stock, only the outer leaves should be harvested so that the plant can sprout. If this is too time-consuming, you can cut off the plants at a height of three to four centimeters with sharp scissors. The plant recovers quickly and thrives.
You should only harvest as much as you use directly. Arugula will only keep in the fridge for up to two days. The best way to do this is to wrap the leaves in a damp kitchen towel. Alternatively, you can process arugula into pesto and make it durable. Unfortunately, drying and freezing are not suitable for preservation, as this loses the aroma and texture.
Diseases and Pests
From time to time clubroot can also become a problem. Beds should not have been planted with arugula or brassicas for a sufficient amount of time prior to cultivation. If the soil is very dry, there are also problems with flea beetles, especially when cultivating in a polytunnel or greenhouse.
Ingredients and uses in the kitchen
In addition to some vitamins and minerals, rocket has a very high mustard oil content. These, also called mustard oil glycosides, have a positive influence on the human immune system. Arugula is he althy, but especially arugula from the supermarket should not be consumed in excessive quantities. Because rocket stores a lot of nitrate, especially in greenhouse culture and intensive fertilization. Therefore, it is clearly an advantage if you have arugulagrows himself. Fertilizers with a high nitrogen content should be avoided and the leaves are best harvested in the afternoon when the nitrate content is lowest.
Arugula leaves mostly find their way into salads. Arugula can also be boiled and added to pasta. Or you fry the leaves briefly and eat them as an accompaniment to grilled meat. Similar to the Pesto alla Genovese, the recipe can also be made with rocket. Simply replace the basil with the rocket and voilà!
Another little tip: If you forget to harvest, you can remove the seeds contained in the seed pods and use them for cooking as well. The taste is reminiscent of mustard seeds.
Arugula has - among other things - a high content of vitamin C. You can find out which other vegetables this also applies to in our special article on vegetables with a lot of vitamin C.