Chicory Year-Round Schedule: Sowing, Heading, Lifting and Winter Forcing

The shape of the chicory year

Chicory is unusual among salad crops in that its calendar runs into the middle of winter rather than stopping at the first frost. Sowing happens in the first half of summer, heading types come to a firm heart as the nights turn cold in autumn, and forcing roots are lifted after the frosts and then produce chicons indoors over the darkest weeks of the year. Understanding that shape is what stops people sowing at the wrong end of the season.

The single most important idea is that cold is a stage of the crop, not the end of it. Chicory sown so it misses the autumn cold gives a bitter, poorly colored, loose-hearted result, and forcing roots that never felt frost sprout unevenly or not at all. Plan backwards from the cold rather than forwards from the warmth.

Summer: sowing and getting the spacing right

The summer work is short and decisive. Sow shallow at a quarter of an inch (5 mm), keep the surface damp until the seedlings appear five to ten days later, and then thin twice: once at the second true leaf and again a fortnight after. Everything that goes wrong later in the season with loose hearts and thin roots can usually be traced to spacing that was never finished.

Heading types want 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) between plants; forcing types 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm), since you are growing a root rather than a rosette. Rows 14 to 18 inches (35 to 45 cm) apart give you room to get in and strip the lower leaves later, which you will be glad of in autumn.

Mulch once the plants have six or seven leaves and water in long soaks rather than daily sprinkles. Chicory that dries hard and is then flooded is the chicory that bolts.

Autumn: the weeks that make the flavor

Autumn is when the crop is actually made. Stop feeding as soon as the nights start to cool and the hearts begin to close, ease off the water, and shift the effort into hygiene: strip yellowing lower leaves, pull mulch back from each crown, clear weeds between the rows so air moves. Slugs and gray mold are the two things that will take the crop, and both are beaten by keeping the base of each plant dry and open.

Then be patient. Every cold night below about 45F (7C) is converting starch to sugar and, in red types, deepening the color. Cutting a fortnight later than you first want to is almost always the right call. Row cover on the coldest nights extends the season past a light frost, and heading chicory takes about 25F (minus 4C) with only the outer leaves suffering.

For forcing types the autumn job is restraint. Reduce water noticeably in the last month so the root firms rather than staying watery, add nothing to the soil, and leave the plants in the ground through the first several frosts before you think about lifting.

1. Stop nitrogen when the nights cool Any feed after the heart starts to close keeps the plant making leaves instead of firming up, and makes soft growth that aphids and rot exploit.
2. Strip and tidy every fortnight Take off the yellowing lower leaves, pull mulch back from the crowns and weed between rows. This is the work that prevents heart rot.
3. Cut a fortnight after you first want to Wait for the heart to feel genuinely firm and, in red types, for the color to turn clear and deep. Cold weather is improving the crop, not threatening it.
4. Lift forcing roots after several frosts Fork them out from well outside the row, sort by thickness, trim the tops to an inch (2.5 cm) above the crown, then rest them cold and dark for two to three weeks.

Winter: forcing in batches

Winter work happens under cover rather than in the garden. Roots that have had their cold rest go into a deep box, packed upright and close together in barely damp sand or spent compost, covered so no light reaches them at all, and held at 50 to 60F (10 to 16C). Three to five weeks later there is a firm pale chicon, 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) tall, ready to snap off the crown.

Start batches a fortnight apart. Roots keep for two or three months in damp sand somewhere cold, so a dozen roots split into three batches gives a steady supply through the emptiest weeks of the year instead of everything at once. Many crowns give a second, smaller chicon if returned to the dark after the first is cut.

The rest of winter is planning. Clear and dig the bed for next year, and leave it unmanured if forcing roots are going in, since fresh manure is what makes a root fork.

Keep one page per season: sowing date, final thinning date, date the first heart felt firm, date of the first night below 45F (7C), lifting date, and the days each forcing batch took. Those six numbers turn a guessed calendar into your own.

Adjusting the calendar to your own garden

The intervals here are reliable but the calendar dates are not, because they depend entirely on when cold weather arrives where you are. Work backwards instead: heading types need roughly 80 to 110 days from sowing to a firm heart, and you want that heart filling while the nights are dropping below 45F (7C). Count back from your usual first frost and you have your sowing date.

For forcing types the arithmetic is longer. They need 150 to 180 days in the ground before lifting, and they must be lifted after several frosts, so they go in near the start of summer in most gardens. If your season is short, the honest answer is to prioritize forcing types and sow heading types only where the autumn is long and mild.

Two seasons of written records will beat any general guidance. The interval between your own sowing date and your own first firm heart, in your own soil, is the number that tells you whether to move the sowing a fortnight either way.