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)

My great big palm tree

Just a quick note about my palm tree. When I first got my yard I had this big mutha plonked smack dab in the center of the only bed

Messy. I know

 So why would a nice palm tree be a bad thing? Well underneath that thing are dense clumps of roots and I've read that some palms' roots eventually spread 25 feet away from the palm... horizontally. Aieee! This could potentially upset the block's structural integrity, not to mention veg grown underneath the palm is going to have to compete with its root system for nutrients, root space and water.

Soil sucker maybe but the cucumbers are finding a way, even if they are a 1/5 of the size of the others

Yet another problem is that watering and fertilizing the veg I grow underneath will hurt the palm (So I'm told) as it requires a special fertilizer and a specific watering regime. Geez. 

Do I keep it?

 

Well. There are three reasons I'm going to keep it

1. It provides shade for the entire bed, me and some containers in the summer months which are particularly vicious here in Malta.
2. I really don't like cutting down trees, that's years of growth there and to be honest I get sentimental. Call it anthropomorphizing (Like talking to a volleyball when shipwrecked) but hey; biologically a mature tree's functions have a certain character, they are complex organisms that have grown in their own specific way so I give them some respect. Plus they are bigger than me and that means they are better ;P
3. I don't have all the facts but I think the palm may aid the soil in some form or fashion... I would like to find out. I'm a scientist at heart.

So Yes. It stays.

How do I incorporate this beast into my plan?

 

To sum up my approach this is what I say to the palm 'Harden the ____ up palmtree!'

I wont be uprooting it because of my aforementioned respect however I'm pretty sure trees don't feel pain. They experience distress, but not pain. So...

1. I'm going to cut off all outgrowths from the sides of the base. No babies mr palm. 
2. I'm watering and fertilizing according to what is planted underneath it. I don't want the prettiest palm in the show I just want it to survive and be mostly healthy.
3. Over a number of sessions I'll be replacing the first foot of the bed with a different mix of soil. I will be cutting the roots around the palm to a depth of 1 foot and right up to the edges. I realise that this is endangering the tree but I will stagger the alterations with respect to that fact. It is my hope that this will not kill it but force it to rely on deeper roots which will not be touched and therefore be free to expand as needed.

So, the palm stays but it better be a fighter. To the palm I say 'May the odds be ever in your favour' 

Also that wasn't really a quick note was it?