Rocket or Arugula from seed

I didn't want to rate this one because at the end of the day Rocket or Arugula or Roquette or Rucola has as many uses as it has names and its use as a salad leaf is the hardest to pull off. (also you don't get seeds from it this way)

I do have a few ideas for growing it in a container using higher seed quantities in order to produce a bumper harvest of the baby leaves you need for salad but that's a different story.

1 month from seed to an ideal salad harvest but is that feeding you? not really.

If left to its own devices its clearest functions are that of a soil breaker/green manure or a herb. It grows pretty much like a weed too, which I think is brilliant.

Delicate seedlings of rocket growing in the nastiest soil I know.

 

Let me explain the whole soil breaker thing. I sowed the seeds directly into my bed which I now know contained the most nutrient deficient/clay filled/tough soil in the world (I may be exaggerating). The soil was literally impossible to move with my bare hands and things were hard pressed to grow in it. However, rocket could break through the tough soil and survive nicely.

About 2/3 weeks after seeding

It's quite amazing that those little guys breached the surface, not many others did (3 spinach plants out of 40 odd seedlings were the only others) and most transplants died! So this is what I mean by a soil breaker, they can thrive in tough soil and their roots assist in breaking it up into 'light', 'fluffy' stuff.

So if it was not harvested and instead used as a green manure one could quickly grow it in tough soil and then churn the large plants into the earth as fertilizer. The earth which is now a bit looser thanks to the roots. Also you can pick leaves off to your hearts content once it's older to use as a bitter, peppery herb so it's not 'idle' while it waits to do its job as a fertilizer.

3 months of growing, It was this big 2 months ago albeit less dense

If we're considering growing rocket specifically as a herb for use in pestos or anything else requiring large quantities of the stuff then it's about 2 months from seed to harvest and that's including lots of picking along the way and a bounty of seeds at the end.

These babies are plug and play when it comes to growing, just scatter on the ground and cover with a thin layer of soil and water. Now wait. 

 

And finally you get a nice bunch of the herbs, bear in mind this bushel would have been larger if I hadn't sowed so thinly I just didn't know how voracious this plant was at the time.

The finished crop has a distinct peppery taste that really does liven up a salad in small quantities but when I say small I mean SMALL. If you want to use more than a leaf or two you really need the baby stuff. However it's great as a component in pesto and I've found I can use it to make the most delicious green curry (which is probably very nutritious too)