Gadenin日本語Get the appJudge by leaf length, not by the calendar
Arugula is ready when the leaves reach the length you want to eat, and that arrives anywhere between three and seven weeks after sowing depending on warmth. Counting days from the packet will have you cutting a spring crop before it is worth cutting and an autumn crop long after the leaves have gone leathery.
There is no penalty for cutting early and a real penalty for cutting late. Small leaves are mild, tender and keep well. Large leaves get progressively hotter, and the midrib turns stringy long before the blade looks tired.
In practice most gardeners find their own preferred size somewhere around three or four inches. Cut a few leaves and taste them before you commit to harvesting the whole bed.
| Leaf length | Typical age | Flavor | Best use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 in (5 cm) | Twenty to twenty-five days | Mild, barely peppery | Salad mixes, garnish |
| 3 to 4 in (8 to 10 cm) | Twenty-five to thirty-five days | Nutty with a clean bite | The all-purpose size |
| 5 to 6 in (13 to 15 cm) | Thirty-five to forty-five days | Distinctly hot, midrib firming | Wilted into pasta, pesto |
| Over 7 in (18 cm) | Forty-five days or more | Harsh, often bitter | Cooked, or composted |
Wild or perennial rocket, with its deeply cut narrow leaves, runs hotter than the broad-leaved annual kind at every size. Cut it a size smaller than you would cut the annual type.
Where to cut is the whole trick
An arugula plant grows from a tight rosette at soil level. Everything above about an inch is expendable leaf; the growing point sits below that. Cut above it and the plant pushes out a new flush within a fortnight. Cut through it and the plant is finished, however many roots it still has.
So the rule is to take the blade across the plant at one inch (2.5 cm) above the soil, leaving the small central leaves standing. It feels like you are leaving crop behind. You are leaving the factory behind.
Use scissors or a sharp knife and cut, do not tear. A torn crown leaves a ragged wound at soil level that rots in wet weather and lets gray mold into the middle of the plant.
- Harvest in the early morning Leaves cut at dawn are turgid and full of water and will keep for a week. The same leaves cut at four in the afternoon go limp within the hour and never fully recover.
- Gather a handful and cut across it Hold the outer leaves loosely together in one hand and take the scissors across at one inch. Cutting a bunch at a time is far quicker than leaf by leaf and gives a more even regrowth.
- Leave the center standing The small pale leaves in the middle are the next crop. If your cut has removed them, you have cut too low and that plant will not come again.
- Clear the debris straight away Rake out the cut stubs and fallen leaves rather than letting them lie in the row. Decaying leaf at soil level is where slugs and gray mold both start.
- Water and feed the same evening Give the row a proper watering and a half-strength liquid feed. Regrowth after a cut is fueled almost entirely by what you put in during the first three days.
How many cuts you actually get
Three good cuts from a single sowing is normal. Four is achievable in cool weather with a well-fed bed. Beyond that the leaves come back narrow and hot and the plant is usually running to seed anyway, so you are better off clearing the row and sowing again.
Each cut takes longer to come back than the one before it, and each is a little smaller. That progression is entirely normal and is not a sign that anything is wrong.
| Cut | Days to regrow | Yield compared with the first | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Not applicable | Full | The best of the crop |
| Second | Ten to fourteen | About three quarters | Very close to the first |
| Third | Fourteen to twenty | About half | Noticeably sharper, still good |
| Fourth | Twenty or more | A quarter or less | Narrow, hot, often bolting |
In summer the whole sequence collapses. A hot-weather sowing frequently gives one cut and then bolts, which is why summer arugula is best sown thickly, cut once as baby leaf, and cleared.
Cutting the row, or picking leaf by leaf
Cutting the whole plant across gives you a lot of leaf at once and a clean predictable regrowth. It is the right method when you have a row of plants at the same stage and you want a bagful.
Picking individual outer leaves and leaving the plant standing gives you a handful whenever you want one, and stretches a small planting a long way. It also keeps the plant working: removing the oldest leaves signals it to keep producing new ones, and in cool weather a picked-over plant can go on for two months.
The one thing not to do is mix the methods carelessly. A plant that has been picked over for weeks has a taller, looser crown than a freshly cut one, and taking scissors across it at one inch will remove the growing point.
Once the flower stem appears
When a stem rises from the center of the rosette the plant has stopped making salad. Leaves formed after that point are narrow, tough and often unpleasantly bitter, and no amount of watering or feeding reverses it.
Cut everything usable off that plant immediately rather than waiting to see what happens. What you take on the day you notice the stem is the last decent leaf that plant will produce.
The plant is not wasted afterwards. The four-petalled cream flowers are edible, milder than the leaves and useful in a salad. The green seed pods have a sharp mustard flavor and are good raw when they are still soft. And if you leave one or two plants to shed seed, you will get volunteer arugula in the same bed next season, which is often the earliest and toughest crop you grow.
Store cut arugula unwashed in a sealed box lined with a dry cloth, in the coldest part of the fridge. Washed leaves rot within two days; dry leaves keep for five to seven. Wash immediately before eating, in cold water, and spin properly dry.