With its bright red leaves and delicious bitterness, chicory will brighten up the gloom | Mail Online:
Order seeds for a mid-late spring sowing, either in plugs or directly into the soil.
During the first phase, which takes 4-5 months after sowing, the plants develop a large green head like a cross between lettuce and cabbage and, really importantly, grow a deep tap root.
In many chicories, this first flush of green foliage is too bitter to eat and will eventually end up on the compost heap, but it serves to feed the tap root that in turn stores the nutrition for the second phase.
As the days shorten and the weather gets colder, the chicory starts to grow the more ornamental leaves we recognise and which are much sweeter than the very bitter initial flush.
If you have not removed the older leaves then it is important to get on and do so now to let plenty of air around the plants. It’s best to remove the older growth bit by bit and to space the plants widely enough so that they can grow to a decent size and have air all around them – 23cm (9in) between each plant is about right.
I have grown many different varieties over the years, all sourced from the area of Italy around Venice which is the world centre of chicory, but now tend to stick to a few favourites like the round, tightly packed radiccio ‘Palla Rossa’, the taller, more upright but brilliantly coloured ‘Rossa di Treviso’, the much sweeter sugarloaf chicory and various types of endive, which break the general rule of chicory in that its ‘first’ leaves can be eaten and used as salad.
‘Witloof’ chicory is rather different in that after it has produced its first leaves, all foliage is cut back to the ground and the plant placed in complete darkness, either by covering the root with a pot, like rhubarb, or by digging the roots up and putting them in a sandbox in a dark cellar (if you have such a thing – I don’t). Then, in the darkness, the roots sprout new leaves that are white and sweet enough to eat raw.
The best way to harvest all chicory is to cut the entire head flush with the soil; they will all resprout and make for another or even two more harvests before spring.
Although very hardy, chicory cannot bear the combination of wet and cold. It responds by developing a slimy carapace of rotten leaves, giving the appearance of total putrefaction fit only for the compost heap. But remove the outer layer of decomposed leaves and you will find that almost everything beneath them is completely untouched and distinctly palatable.
I have found that open-ended cloches allowing lots of air flow while acting as umbrellas are the answer.
'via Blog this'
Chicory has two distinct phases of growth, rather like a biennial flower but all within one season.
During the first phase, which takes 4-5 months after sowing, the plants develop a large green head like a cross between lettuce and cabbage and, really importantly, grow a deep tap root.
In many chicories, this first flush of green foliage is too bitter to eat and will eventually end up on the compost heap, but it serves to feed the tap root that in turn stores the nutrition for the second phase.
As the days shorten and the weather gets colder, the chicory starts to grow the more ornamental leaves we recognise and which are much sweeter than the very bitter initial flush.
If you have not removed the older leaves then it is important to get on and do so now to let plenty of air around the plants. It’s best to remove the older growth bit by bit and to space the plants widely enough so that they can grow to a decent size and have air all around them – 23cm (9in) between each plant is about right.
I have grown many different varieties over the years, all sourced from the area of Italy around Venice which is the world centre of chicory, but now tend to stick to a few favourites like the round, tightly packed radiccio ‘Palla Rossa’, the taller, more upright but brilliantly coloured ‘Rossa di Treviso’, the much sweeter sugarloaf chicory and various types of endive, which break the general rule of chicory in that its ‘first’ leaves can be eaten and used as salad.
‘Witloof’ chicory is rather different in that after it has produced its first leaves, all foliage is cut back to the ground and the plant placed in complete darkness, either by covering the root with a pot, like rhubarb, or by digging the roots up and putting them in a sandbox in a dark cellar (if you have such a thing – I don’t). Then, in the darkness, the roots sprout new leaves that are white and sweet enough to eat raw.
The best way to harvest all chicory is to cut the entire head flush with the soil; they will all resprout and make for another or even two more harvests before spring.
Although very hardy, chicory cannot bear the combination of wet and cold. It responds by developing a slimy carapace of rotten leaves, giving the appearance of total putrefaction fit only for the compost heap. But remove the outer layer of decomposed leaves and you will find that almost everything beneath them is completely untouched and distinctly palatable.
I have found that open-ended cloches allowing lots of air flow while acting as umbrellas are the answer.
'via Blog this'
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