Eruca sativa
Arugula, cultivated arugula, rocket: its peppery bite comes from the same sulfur compounds as mustard—it is, in fact, a brassica, much more closely related to cabbage than to lettuce. An exceptionally fast crop: just three to four weeks are enough between sowing and the first harvest.
Characteristics:
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Peppery flavor: a pronounced bite and a hint of hazelnut that lifts any salad.
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Very fast growth: first harvest 3 to 4 weeks after sowing.
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Edible flowers: cream-white, veined with purple, they make an attractive garnish.
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Self-seeds once established in the garden.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: sunny, or partial shade in midsummer—heat intensifies its bite to the point of harshness and makes it bolt.
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Soil: ordinary, cool and well drained. It is not demanding, but soil that stays cool produces noticeably more tender, milder leaves.
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Method: sow directly in place from March to September, 1 cm deep, in rows spaced 20 cm apart. Stagger sowings every two to three weeks: arugula bolts quickly, so it is better to renew it than to prolong the crop. See how to sow your seeds.
Care advice:
- Thin to 10 cm apart. Water regularly: this is the key to tender, mild leaves.
- Insect mesh helps keep flea beetles away, those tiny beetles that riddle its foliage with holes.
Harvesting advice:
- Pick the outer leaves one at a time, leaving the center intact: the plant will regrow and produce for weeks. Do not cut down the entire clump.
- Harvest young: the older the leaves become, the hotter and tougher they get.
Beneficial combinations:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Let a few plants flower: their cream-colored flowers veined with purple are highly attractive to bees and hoverflies, whose larvae devour aphids.
- It makes good use of empty spaces in the vegetable garden instead of leaving the soil bare.
Uses:
- Raw in salads, alone or mixed, with Parmesan and pine nuts. Cooked like spinach, in soup, or in pesto, where it makes an excellent substitute for basil. Its flowers make a lovely garnish.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Let a few plants flower, then form their seed pods. Harvest them when thoroughly dry and shell them. Arugula also readily self-seeds from one year to the next. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Volcans d'Auvergne, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, test them for germination rates, and carefully sort and package them without any chemical treatment. Our conviction: to restore gardeners' ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
The fastest salad crop in the vegetable garden—and the most flavorful.
