Photo by Rick Gush
We are busy harvesting arugula this season .
Rucola(arugula)
This is high time of year for rucola ( arugula ) and we ’re glean every few days . Collecting arugula takes a bit of time because each leaf has to be reap individually , but the result is deserving the results . in reality , we grow two dissimilar type of arugula : the wild variety that self seeds , shows up every spring and hold out until the summer rut ; and another eccentric called “ naturalise ” arugula that we sow in fall and glean for most of the wintertime .
Cultivated Eruca sativa can out - succumb barbaric arugula by more than double . While the raving mad poppycock just depict up wherever it feel like , the cultivated harvest can be nicely contained within a exclusive planting zone .
The leaf on the wild arugula that we ’re reap now are leaner than the educate variety show , but the look can be more acute . The older leaves underneath the new growth are particularly crunchy and toothsome . The wild variety also has the vantage of being cuss - free , while the civilise case is bothered by a fungous disease that can blemish the leaves with lots of little yellow pustules .
Obviously , we ’re big arugula eaters . In colder weather , my wife make pizzas in the oven , and we would n’t think of deplete pizza without generous helpings of arugula as a topping . During warmer weather condition , we feed a lot of salads , and the rocket salad serve as the jet groundwork , with or without extra moolah greens integrate in . In the in - between month , my married woman often makes pesto with arugula instead of basil . This makes for a really tasty pesto that we expend to flavour pasta or simply to spread on lettuce for sandwiches .
Our 16 vauntingly - leave greenish basil works just do n’t seem to be enough for our basil usage .
Basilica(basil)
This is also the start of the summer basilica ( basil ) season , so we harvest basil to make pesto often . It take a middling amount of basil to make a batch of pesto , so we produce a phone number of unlike plants so as to be able to reap large quantities frequently .
This yr we ’re growing 16 basil plants , all the same boastfully - leaved , green eccentric . I often recollect this is not enough . Unfortunately basil seems to prefer copious soil with a bit of tincture , and we do n’t really have a place for more basil plants . possibly this wintertime I can think ’bout making some new planting areas specifically for the basil harvest .
We ’ve tried growing a bunch of the other basils like the little - leaved “ Greek ” change , the dark - bequeath types and the various lemon- and other - flavored basil . But for sheer bulk of harvestable foliage ( which is what we want ) , the large - leaved green character is our preference .
We are busy harvesting arugula this season.
I do n’t even seed the Basil of Caesarea any longer , because I like the 6- in pots with clumps of basil seed in a greenhouse . These thick clumps backpack more harvestable leaf into a small area . The plant do not develop nearly as tall as single specimen , but the percentage of quality harvestable leaves is much higher .
Read more of Rick ’s Favorite Crops »
