Rocket (Arugula)

DESCRIPTION

Rocket is commonly known as a salad leaf with a mild, peppery flavour - but the flowering stems are also a delicious green vegetable.

POT CARE AND PLANTING

Rocket is easy to care for in a pot - transplant into a larger pot or a garden bed within 7 days. Soil level should be 1mm below the start of the lowest leaves.

WATERING

Rocket is a medium water consumer - water it an average amount, once per day (early morning or late afternoon is best in summer - water twice a day during the hottest months if you choose to grow it through summer).

SUN EXPOSURE

Rocket can only take about half a day of sun. Avoid letting the plant get too hot and thirsty, as this will cause it to go to flower immediately and the leaves to become stronger in flavour - if you plant it close to vegetables that will provide it with shade, and at the shadier end of your garden, it will last longer. I recommend planting it close to an East or West facing fence or wall.

COMPANION PLANTING

This variety will remain small for a little while, especially if you harvest a lot of salad greens from it - however when it flowers it can get to over 1m tall and take up much more space. Brassicas will grow best close to amaranths, apiums, asters, alliums, and other brassicas - leaving enough space for the largest plants to expand. Try to plant other things in between your brassicas to confuse pests- plants in this family can be well protected from attack by the Cabbage White butterfly using a number of companion planting techniques - see "Growing your food" for more. Allowing brassicas to flower during the winter provides habitat for beneficial insects and helps to maintain the presence of pollinators during the colder months. Rocket flowers also seem to repel the Cabbage White by looking like a crowd of butterflies busy trying to lay their eggs - the butterfly prefers its eggs to have low competition.

HARVESTING AND EATING

The leaves, stems, and flowers of rocket can be eaten at different times, and all parts have a mild peppery flavour. In the early stages, the leaves can be eaten raw as a baby green, as long as a good amount of leaves are still left on the plant - later on they are better made into a potent rocket pesto. When the plant gets big enough to start producing flower spikes, water it extra for a few days to encourage the stems to swell up and develop a cloudy looking coating, as the flowers get closer to opening. At this point, you can use your fingers to find the lowest point on the flower stems where they will snap instead of bending - this is your first stem harvest, and you can eat it raw, but I recommend steaming or stir frying the juicy stems. Water it some more and enjoy the more tender leaves while you wait for more flowering stalks to grow from the same plant. Harvest them the same way until the season ends, or leave some in place to produce seed for you. The flowers can still be eaten after they open, but less of the stem will be tender, and the pollen has a potent mustardy flavour.

SEED SAVING AND PROPAGATION

If you let the flowers open and leave these stems on the plant, eventually they'll produce a bunch of tiny pods full of seeds that are super easy to save and propagate. They'll take a few weeks to finish their life cycle, but when you see that the flowering stem is starting to die back, cut it off and dry it whole in a paper bag. Shake and crunch the pods in the bag to release the seeds and discard the larger bits of plant material - these seeds will be good for up to 6 years. You can re-sow your own crop right away, or save your rocket seeds over the winter in something airtight. They're super easy to germinate - simply cover with about 10mm of soil and keep moist, when daytime temperatures are above about 12 degrees.