Like other lettuces, celtuce is day length-sensitive, which means it tends to bolt when the days are long. Bolting refers to premature flowering and stem elongation, which makes your celtuce taste bitter. But if it does bolt, let it go. Celtuce can grow 4 or 5 feet tall, providing nectar, pollen, habitat, and landing platforms for many beneficial insects (and you get free seeds!).

​How to grow celtuce

Plant seeds no more than ¼-inch deep. They germinate best in temperatures from 35°F to 60°F and should be planted 14- to 24-inches apart. These plants will reach maturity in about 60 days. They will be 12-18-inches long. Early leaves can be harvested 4 or 5 weeks after planting, starting at the bottom of the plant. This cut-and-come-again characteristic means you can get a surprising amount of food from a single plant. Mature leaves are edible but tend to be too bitter due to their milky sap.

One way to avoid the limitations of a hot summer is to grow your celtuce indoors, where temperatures tend to be more stable. Lettuce and celtuce root systems are shallow, so containers do not need to be especially large. These plants need nutrient-rich soil, so use high-quality potting soil in your containers.

Problems with celtuce

Aphids, slugs, snails, and whiteflies are attracted to your celtuce. And I’m going to assume that most lettuce problems apply to celtuce. Celtuce stems tend to split after heavy rain, providing entry for pests and diseases.
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How about sharing a pack of celtuce seeds with your friends and neighbors to see what you think about this delicious crunchy green?

Three to four weeks later, you will have your very own Belgian endive crop. Simply snap the head off and there you have it!

​Problems associated with growing Belgian endive

If you plant seeds too early, bolting may occur. While that’s a great way to get seeds for next year, you won’t have any harvestable heads. And if too much nitrogen is present, your plants will focus on leafy growth rather than root development. And you need healthy roots to get harvestable heads.

Each root only produces one head, so the old root can be fed to your chickens or added to the compost pile.

Growing Jerusalem artichokes
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To grow your own Jerusalem artichoke crop, begin by selecting a site. Remember, these plants are going to be around for a long time, and they can become rather tall. Unlike many other plants, sunchokes seem to enjoy being clumped together, but they should still be planted 8 to 12 inches apart. Create soil mounds over the plantings, 2 to 3 inches deep, and water regularly, allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.

Starting with a single Jerusalem artichoke tuber, you will eventually find your garden overrun with these perennials. Each plant can produce 75 to 200 tubers every year. Left unharvested, each of those will produce tubers of their own. In my book, that’s a good thing - but you may feel differently. Since tubers left in the ground for too long tend to deteriorate, and they can become invasive, Jerusalem artichokes are a good candidate for large containers or raised beds. This will facilitate crop rotation and control the number of Jerusalem artichoke plants you end up with each year. Any little piece of tuber left in the ground is likely to sprout, to plant accordingly.

Grown in containers, Jerusalem artichokes do not need to be fertilized if you start with nutrient rich potting soil mixed with aged compost. Plants will need to be watered deeply, once a week, throughout the summer. Staking may be needed to keep plants from toppling over, or you can grow them along a fence or against a building.

Harvesting Jerusalem artichokes

As the leaves, flowers, and stems begin to die back at the end of the growing season, usually around October, you can dig up the tubers and allow them to dry, unwashed, for storage. Each plant will produce approximately five pounds of tubers. Sunchoke stems can be chopped and used for mulch, while the tubers to be used for the next year’s crop are simply placed back in the growing bed, along with some aged compost, and the cycle begins again.

[Mostly] edible sunchokes

Surprisingly low in starch, Jerusalem artichokes contain a type of carbohydrate sugar, called inulin, which gives them an underlying sweet taste. While the human gut cannot digest inulin, bacteria further down can, so some people may experience a certain ‘airiness’ after eating sunchokes. If they are not bothersome to you, they also provide a lot of potassium, iron, fiber, and B vitamins. ​

Or, if you prefer, you can ferment your Jerusalem artichoke crop to make brandy, the way they do in Germany.

As an older native plant, sunchokes have very few pests or diseases to worry about. So, mark your calendar to start Jerusalem artichokes in March or April, and start preparing the planting space today!

Escarole is a ‘bitter green’ member of the chicory family that looks like a lettuce, but packs a powerful nutritional punch. And no Italian wedding soup would be right without it.

Escarole has been eaten and cultivated since Egyptian times. Escarole is an excellent addition to soups and salads, providing both flavor and texture. It can also be baked into casseroles, sautéed, added to pasta, or used to wrap meat or fish. [Lightly sautéing or braising escarole is the best way to bring out its sweetness.] In fact, it is easier to find recipes for escarole than growing tips. But grow it we shall!

The escarole plant

Cousin to radicchio, escarole is a subspecies of endive [on-deev]. The endive species is divided between curly endive or frisée (var crispum), with narrow, toothed leaves, and escarole, or broadleaf endive (var latifolia). Being a type of chicory, escarole has darker outer leaves and pale green to white inner leaves. The degree of greenness to a leaf is an indicator of its bitterness. The chemicals that create the bitterness are said to aid digestion. This group of plants also produces a milky white latex than can cause skin irritation for some.

Escarole, and other chicories, are biennial plants grown as annuals. If you allow them to go through their full lifecycle, as I do, the flowers will attract pollinators​ and you will find escarole turning up everywhere that it can grow!

How to grow escarole

In hot regions, escarole seeds are generally planted in early fall through early spring, successively. This helps avoid bolting, or going to seed, before plants reach full size, and ensures a ready supply of fresh escarole for the kitchen. While they are less likely to bolt than lettuce or spinach, escarole leaves do not taste very good once this process begins.

Escarole is grown much like lettuce, in that it prefers full sun, consistent moisture, temperatures between 50 and 75°F, and a soil pH of 6.0 to 6.8, ideally. Like lettuce, if the soil dries out too much, growth will slow and the leaves will become too bitter to enjoy. Prepare the seed bed by top dressing with aged compost.

Seeds are planted 1/4-inch deep and thinned to 6 to 12 inches apart. Plants growing too close together are more likely to bolt. Side dressing with more aged compost will provide valuable nutrients, retain moisture, and slow weed growth. Escarole also makes a lovely container plant, indoors or out. Escarole matures in 85 to 98 days, depending on conditions.

Escarole pests and diseases

Aphids, flea beetles, beet leafminers, cabbageworms, cabbage loopers, leafhoppers, slugs and snails, and cutworms may feed on your escarole plants, but they rarely cause serious damage. You can use brassica collars to protect young escarole from cutworm damage, and row covers to block many of the other pests. Diseases of escarole include damping off disease, downy mildews, Alternaria leaf spot, Rhizoctonia blight, white mold, leaf rot, and bottom rot.

Harvesting escarole

You can remove outer leaves any time you like, or cut the entire plant off at ground level. Leaving the root system in place feeds the soil microorganisms that help our plants thrive.

Escarole does not freeze well, but many of the recipes that use escarole do, so cook it up and freeze it for later use.

The oyster plant (Tragopogon porrifolius), also known as salsify, purple salsify, Jerusalem star, or goatsbeard, offers lovely spiked purple flowers each spring morning, tucking themselves discretely away by early afternoon. [The names goatsbeard and salsify are applied to other species, as well, so we will avoid using them here.] The oyster plant is a member of the sunflower family.

Oyster plant description

Oyster plants are a biennial wildflower/vegetable. Originally from the Mediterranean, this plant is now found around the globe. Oyster plants start out looking much like grass, with straight blade-like leaves. A central stalk emerges that can reach 4 feet in height, though they are normally half that height. If damaged or broken off, a milky white sap, or latex, is seen. The taproot looks much like a white carrot. Large purple flowers can be 2 inches across. Behind each flower head, you will see green spikes that are longer than the flower petals. These spikes are ligules of the ray flowers (petals). Flowers are both male and female. Pollination is performed by insects. These plants, similarly to dandelions, produce seeds that are actually dried fruits surrounding the seed. These seeds are known as achenes. Oyster plant seed heads look much like dandelion seed heads, only bigger.

Also known as the daisy family, or the aster family, this family has two scientific names: Asteraceae and Compositae. Compositae, an older, yet still acceptable name, means composite, and it refers the compound flowers common to the family. Asteraceae is the more modern name and it means ‘star’, which also refers to the flower.
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Family flowers

If you look closely at a flower of this plant family, you will see that it is actually made up of many tiny flowers clustered together. This flower head is called a pseudanthium. The individual flowers are called florets. These flower heads are usually surrounded by a whorl of bracts, called an involucre. In some cases, these composite flowers look like a single flower with long petals. These specialized ‘sunray’ petals are long, strap-shaped ‘ray flowers’, while the tiny flowers in the center are called ‘disk flowers’. Because these flower heads are made up of hundreds, or even thousands, of tiny flowers, plants in this family normally attract many pollinators and other beneficial insects.

Asteraceae plant structure

While most members of this family are herbaceous, some are shrubs, while others are vines, and some are even trees. Most members of the sunflower family produce taproots. These plants often contain latex. The leaves can be opposite, alternate, or whorled, and they are often lobed or toothed. The seeds are called 'cypselas' (a simple, dry, achene-like fruit), indehiscent (does not one at maturity), and they often have a mechanism that helps them fly on a breeze.

Growing Asteraceae
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Plants in this family tend to be shallow-rooted, though not always. Generally, they do not perform well in heavy clay, so be sure to regularly top dress the soil with aged compost. This will increase the macropores and micropores within the soil structure, add nutrients, and provide for the microorganisms that feed your plants. These plants have very few pests or diseases.

Cardoons (Cynara cardunculus) are edible thistles from the sunflower family.

​Eaten the same way as celery, or cooked into stews and soups, cardoons are a maintenance-free perennial. The familiar, grocery store variety of artichoke is a type of cardoon, but there are differences.

Native to the dry climate of Morocco, cardoons are unfazed by drought, making them an easy choice in California and other Mediterranean climates. Also known as artichoke thistles, cardoons produce magnificent pinkish-purple spiked flowers from April through July, but it is the stems that are eaten.

Cardoon description

Wild cardoons are sturdy herbaceous perennials that grow 3 to 5 feet tall, with deeply lobed, greenish-gray leaves that can be spiny, hairy, or downy (a condition called tomentose). The fleshy taproot is very good at finding water. And pollinators love the big, showy flowers!

Cardoon types

Cardoons are grown for two different crops, using different cultivars. The familiar globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus) is grown for its large edible flower buds. The plant referred to as ‘cardoon’ (C. cardunculus var. altilis) is grown, instead, for its edible leaf stems. Since the wild ancestor to cardoons featured painful spines on those stems, spineless cultivars have been developed. Our domesticated artichokes and cardoons are so closely related that they can cross-pollinate, so they should be grown a fair distance from one another.

How cardoons grow

Cardoons need a long, cool growing season, making them an excellent winter crop in the Bay Area. Seeds are started late fall to mid-winter and they transplant easily. These plants grow slowly, at first, but don’t let them fool you. Cardoons can get quite large, averaging 3 feet in all directions. Plants need full sunlight, moderate amounts of water, and good drainage. Watering regularly improves the flavor of cardoon stems. They are frost sensitive, so some protection may be needed in the form of mounded straw or dry leaves around the base of the plant during winter. The plants often die back to ground level after flowering, but they will come back, year after year, adding structure and color in winter, and a spectacular show in spring and early summer.

Harvesting cardoons

Only the tender, inner stalks are eaten. These are harvested before the plant goes to flower. Much like celery, these stalks are wrapped in fabric, paper, or straw during the 30 days of growth. This etiolation, or bleaching, keeps the stems white and tender. Traditionally, the stalks were buried under a mound of soil as the plant grew, but that just sounds like too much work. The stalks are then peeled and treated with a little lemon juice, to prevent browning. Simmer for 30 minutes or so and add to any number of Moroccan, African, Greek, Italian, or Persian dishes. In addition, cardoon seeds contain a high quality oil, similar to sunflower oil and safflower oil.

Cardoon pests and diseases

Like its close cousin, the artichoke, cardoons are vulnerable to feeding by slugs and snails, and the artichoke plume moth. They are also susceptible to the viral disease artichoke curly dwarf. Other than that, they are relatively indestructible.

An invasive weed

Cardoons are so hardy, and they self-seed so readily, that they are categorized as a Most Invasive Wildland Pest Plant by the Invasive Species Compendium. What this means to you, as a home gardener, is that it is very important that mature flowers are deadheaded before seeds can spread. This will protect the environment and prevent your yard from filling up with pokey thistle plants. Cardoons grow and spread so readily that some researchers are studying them as a source of biofuel and bioplastics materials.

Invasive weed or delicious vegetable, cardoons have been part of the human diet since ancient times, only falling out of public favor over the last 100 years.

As easy as it is to grow, perhaps it is time for a cardoon in your foodscape!

Chicory is a woody perennial that comes in many different varieties, depending on the cultivated use: roots (var. sativum) and leaves (var. foliosum) are the most common. Chicory, occurring naturally, can indicate compacted soil. Luckily, its deep taproot helps break up that compacted soil, plus it’s a drought tolerant plant!

​Chicory’s bitter truth

It’s true. Chicory has a bitter taste. Some people like it and some don’t. Science Daily published an interesting report about the evolution of bitter taste sensitivity. It talks about how we evolved to dislike bitterness to avoid being poisoned but, as a result, we now avoid many healthy foods! It’s an interesting read; check it out.

​Chicory as food

Chicory is a highly versatile plant. It’s slightly bitter leaves are used in salads, the buds can be blanched in boiling water, and the taproots are frequently roasted and ground up as a coffee substitute. Chicory is also grown as livestock feed and is said to combat internal parasites. The leaves of wild chicory and domesticated chicory plants that have been stressed are more bitter than domesticated varieties. You can reduce the bitterness by changing the cooking water 2 or 3 times. If you want to harvest chicory root for a Big Easy beverage, gather them before the flowering stems emerge. These roots can also be cooked and eaten the same as carrots or parsnips. Chicory roots can also be ground into flour and used to make bread, and some brewers add chicory to their beer recipes. How’s that for versatile?

Chicory and nutrition

We’ve all heard how important it is to eat our fruits and vegetables. And a certain sailor has been telling us, for decades, to eat our spinach. You may be surprised to learn that chicory contains powerful disease-fighting compounds called polyphenols. In 2013, the Journal of Nutrition published research that showed adults who consume 650 mg of polyphenols each day tend to live longer and better than those who don’t. This is due to polyphenols’ abilities to protect your cardiovascular system, fight cancer, and reduce inflammation. One cup of chicory contains 235 mg of polyphenols, which is twice the amount found in spinach!

Chicory’s family tree

Family trees can be funny things. It’s like going to a reunion and learning that you are actually related to that person. A member of the sunflower family (Asteraceae), chicory (Cichorium intybus) is one of those large, gregarious groups that keeps turning up in unexpected places, and some of the connections aren’t exactly clear. For example, curly endive, Belgian endive, and radicchio are all types of chicory, dandelions and lettuce are siblings, and chicory’s cousins include sunflowers, artichokes, yarrow, chrysanthemums, and even dahlias.

Chicory description

Chicory’s pretty blue flowers have lent it many names: cornflower, bachelor’s buttons, coffeeweed, blue daisy, and wild endive. Like other members of the sunflower family, the flowers are composite and leaves are normally toothed or lobed. The tough, hairy flowering stem is grooved and plants grow 10 to 40 inches tall. Occasionally, the flowers can be white or pink, but this is rare. Flowers appear July through October. Like dandelions, chicory plants have an irritating milky sap that you know as latex.

Chicory leaf types

Many people call leaf chicory ‘endive’, but this is a mistake. True endive (Cichorium endiva) is its own species. The two can, however, cross-pollinate and hybridize, but that only affects the seeds produced that year. There are three types of cultivated leaf chicory (Cichorium intybus):

• Belgian endive [pronounced on-DEEV]— small heads of white (etiolated*) endive
• Radicchio - softball sized head with red or red and green variegated leaves
• Sugarloaf - looks like Romaine lettuce, but toothed and with more bitterness

*Sometimes, chicory receives a special treatment called etiolation. In the culinary world, this is called blanching. [The word ‘blanching' can also refer to a cooking method that submerges food briefly in boiling water, but I digress.] Whatever you call it, this refers to blocking sunlight to all or part of a plant to produce longer stalks (celery), or white leaves (Belgian endive).

How to grow chicory

In warmer climates, chicory is a cool season crop that can be started in January and February, for an early summer crop, and again in July or August, for an early winter crop. This gives the seeds time to get started before the weather turns too hot or too cold. Chicory grown in areas with scorching summers tends to bolt, and the leaves are more bitter. A light frost actually reduces some of the bitterness and adds just a touch of sweetness. Seeds should be planted 1/4 inch deep and thinned to 12 inches apart. Avoid overhead watering, as the leaves are prone to rotting.

Chicory pests and diseases
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Despite its rugged nature, there are some pests and diseases that can impact chicory. Bacterial soft rot, damping off disease, fusarium wilt, white mold, anthracnose, bottom rot, downy mildews, and septoria blight are all diseases that attack chicory. Aphids, cabbage loopers, darkling beetles, flea beetles, leaf miners, thrips, and slugs and snails may feed on your chicory plants.

Chicory is one of those plants that can grow like a weed. Once established, you can pretty much ignore it until you decide to harvest whatever part you have a hankering for. And, hey, even the flowers are edible!

The large floral disk of sunflowers, jam packed with seeds, hardly needs description, but there is a lot more to this cheery bloom than meets the eye.

Ancient history & sunflowers
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Sunflowers are native to North America. Recent research has shown that they were also growing in Central America way back into antiquity. There are some interesting name exchanges in primitive languages that lead archeologists to believe there were far more cultural exchanges between the two regions than was previously thought. According to researchers at the University of Cincinnati, “sunflowers were domesticated thousands of years and hundreds of miles apart” making them an interesting topic in human history. More currently, sunflowers are one of the world’s top oil producing plants. Each year, nearly 45 million tons of sunflowers are grown worldwide!

The sunflower family

Sunflowers are part of a plant family called Asteraceae. The sunflower family includes asters, artichokes, dahlias, yarrow, marigolds, endive, dandelions, and Echinacea, just to name a few. Sunflowers can be annual or perennial, depending on the variety, microclimate, and growing conditions. Some varieties grow as a single fat, hairy stalk, while others grow several branches. There are several species of sunflower (Helianthus annus). Some dwarf varieties are only a foot and a half tall, while others can reach twelve feet!

Benefits of sunflowers

If the happy blooms and tasty seeds weren’t reason enough to add them to your garden, sunflowers also attract many beneficial insects. Honey bees, lacewings, butterflies, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps enjoy the nectar, pollen, and prey insects found on and near sunflowers. Personally, I love the tiny finches that are so fond of eating the wide, spade-shaped leaves. Local squirrels and seed eating birds can become problematic, or you can simply plant a few extras near the fence line.

Heliotropism

Heliotropism refers to a plant’s ability to track the sun’s movement and sunflowers are masters of heliotropism. Sunflowers use phytohormones called auxins and an internal circadian clock to follow the sun across the sky each day. During the night, they turn their west-facing blooms back toward the east, in anticipation of the dawn. Scientists were surprised to discover that bringing outdoor sunflowers indoors, with a constant overhead light source, the plants still went through their east to west cycle for a few days. It was also found that certain genes tell the east side of the plants grow more quickly during the day, while the west side of the plants grows more at night. As the plants mature, this movement slows, leaving most sunflowers facing east, rather than west. The reason? Scientists found that eastward facing flower heads (capitula) heated up more quickly than their westward neighbors. This added warmth attracted FIVE TIMES more beneficial insects, for better pollination and pest protection!

Sunflowers and children

Sunflowers grow quickly and often to impressive heights, which makes them an excellent choice when gardening with children. In fact, if you plant your sunflower seeds properly, you can create a fort, a maze, or a magic castle right in your own back yard! Or, to watch germination as it occurs, you can place sunflower seeds inside a clear glass with a dark colored sponge. Place the seeds between the glass and the sponge and add water. Before you know it, the magic happens! Then take your sunflower sprouts and add them to a salad or plant them in the garden! In either case, they make a healthy snack and provide your children with a sense of ownership.

How to grow sunflowers

Most sunflower plants are grown from seed. A few species also propagate using creeping roots, which makes them a noxious weed in some agricultural areas. Sunflowers need lots of sun, water, and nitrogen, but they are less picky about soil than many other plants. Seeds can be started in cell flats or other small containers and then transplanted, or they can be directly sown into the garden or landscape, after the last chance of frost has passed. Seeds should be planted one inch deep and watered daily until they sprout. After they have sprouted, plants will need an inch of rain or irrigation each week, depending on the weather. For optimal growth, space your sunflower 2 ½ to 3 feet apart. Dwarf varieties only need 6 inches. Seedlings often need protection from birds, squirrels, slugs and snails. Sunflowers can take up to 3 months to reach full size. Sunflowers need lots of nutrients, so adding aged compost to the planting area will help them to get a good start. They do, occasionally need staking.

Sunflower seeds contain a chemical that is toxic to grass plants, so you should harvest the seeds before they start falling on your lawn or near other members of the grain family (Poaceae), such as corn, millet, wheat, barley, or bamboo. You can also plant sunflowers much the way Native Americans did, using the Three Sisters Method, by replacing corn with sunflowers. The squash or melon leaves will shade the ground around your sunflowers and pole beans will climb the stalks and provide a nitrogen boost before they go to seed themselves.

Sunflower pests & diseases

Sunflowers tend to be sturdy plants that fend for themselves rather well. Keep a look out for ant trails going up the stalks that can indicate an aphid problem. Sticky barriers can be used to block the ants, which makes the aphids more vulnerable to their natural enemies. Other sunflower pests include dried fruit beetles, cutworms, carrot beetles, some foliage-feeding caterpillars, leaf beetles, spider mites, thrips, and the dreaded sunflower bud moth. Fungal diseases, such as crown gall, downy mildews, powdery mildew, rust, and Verticillium wilt can be a problem, but this occurs more in agricultural fields than in backyard gardens.

Harvesting sunflowers

Once your sunflower head has reached full size, it will probably be bent over and surprisingly heavy. If you stroke the face of the flower head with your hand, dozens of tiny dried bits (pappus) will fall away. Personally, I give all my sunflowers a quick rub to dislodge potential pests and to remove these bits. Before removing the head from the stalk, use your fingernail to nick out a few seeds and open them up. Are the seeds plump? If not, give them some more time. You certainly don’t want to harvest a head of empty shells! Seeds have normally reached maturity around the same time the petals start to fall from the flower. You can protect immature heads from birds with netting or large paper bags.

Once the seeds have reached maturity, cut the stem an inch or two below the flower head. Seeds can be allowed to dry in the head, or they can be rubbed loose over a newspaper or old sheet. Be sure to blow away any chaff that may harbor pests or disease. I always save several of the largest, healthiest looking seeds for next year’s crop. After that, allow seeds to dry out completely before storing in an airtight container. You can also salt and/or roast your seeds. If you suspect seed pests, freezing your sunflower seeds will kill off any eggs that may be lurking in the shells. Sunflower seeds stored in the refrigerator or freezer are good for a year, while raw seeds stored at room temperature are only good for 2 or 3 months. Roasted, shelled seeds have a shelf life of 3 to 4 months, and unshelled roasted seeds can last 4 to 5 months.

Sunflower trivia

Sunflower oil can be used as a horticultural oil, but I definitely prefer it as sunflower butter on toast or in place of peanut butter in cookies. Yummy!

One variety, the giant whorled sunflower (Helianthus verticillatus) was first seen in 1892. Then it was believed to be extinct until 1994 when it was discovered by Vanderbilt University student, Jennifer Ellis. The giant whorled sunflower is currently listed as an endangered species and is only found in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee - the birthplace of the sunflower species.

In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadores banned the use of sunflowers in Mexico, believing that they were an aphrodisiac.

Add some sunflowers to your garden today! (No matter what the Spaniards said!)

If you eat salads, soups, or burgers, curly endive is an excellent addition to your garden. It looks pretty, it tolerates both heat and cold, and, if allowed to go to seed, will decorate your yard with dozens of rosette-shaped edible plants! These cousins to dandelions and sunflowers have much to offer the home gardener. One cup of fresh endive contains 220% of the Daily Value for Vitamin K, 36% folic acid, 20% manganese, and plenty of other nutrients. Endives also add a distinct depth of flavor to many dishes.

​There are several members of the endive family. They are all cool season greens, with high nutritional values and varying degrees of bitterness. Now, bitterness is a weird thing. I just read Evolution of bitter taste sensitivity, from ScienceDaily, and learned how the conflict between disliking bitterness protects us from eating toxins and prevents us from enjoying healthy foods is more complex than you might expect. Give it a read!

Endive varieties:

• endive (Cichorium endivia), which includes curly endive, or frisée, and escarole
• wild endive (Cichorium pumilum)
• common chicory (Cichorium intybus), which includes radicchio, puntarelle, and Belgian endive

How to grow endive

Endive is a cool season biennial plant, like lettuce and spinach, that can be grown in sun, shade, or outdoor containers. (It would look nice on an apartment balcony, too!) In warm regions, endive can be started in late summer, fall, or winter. The plants are tolerant of light frost, which is about all we get. Plants prefer plenty of sunlight and a soil pH of 5 - 6.8, which is more acidic than we tend to have, but my plants don’t seem to care. Seeds should be planted 1/4 inch deep. Mature plants will need to be 8 to 12 inches apart, unless you are growing Belgian endive, which is another story altogether (below). If plants are too close together, they are more likely to bolt, or go to seed. Water regularly to keep the bitterness to a minimum. Dressing the plants with aged compost once or twice during the growing season adds nutrients needed for the best flavor and growth. (Dressing means putting aged compost around a plant.) When plants are 5 to 6 inches tall, they can be harvested by cutting them off at ground level. The remaining stump will grow another plant for a continuous harvest. Or, you can simply remove outer leaves, as you need them, which is what I do.

Lettuce is a biennial garden staple that finds its way into most burgers and lays the foundation for nearly every salad ever made. With half of the world’s lettuce crop being grown by China, and numerous cases of E. coli and Salmonella poisoning in bagged salads, lettuce should be one of the first garden plants you try. Fresh lettuce is cheaper, tastier, safer, and far better for the environment than anything that has been shipped from halfway around the planet.

History of lettuce

The ancient Egyptians took advantage of a certain type of weed, whose seeds contained a lot of oil. Over time, those weeds became domesticated and the edible leaves started being used for food and medicine. The Romans gave lettuce its Latin name, Lactuca sativa, for the white latex (lactuca) that drips from cut stems. (Sativa means cultivated.) Being people, we saved seeds from our favorite types to ultimately create nearly 150 varieties of lettuce. 

Lettuce varieties

Lettuce generally grows in a crisphead, loose leaf, or romaine form, but there are seven cultivar groups: 

• Oilseed lettuce is (still) grown solely for its large, oil-packed seeds
• Stem lettuce is grown for its stalks and used primarily in Asian cooking
• Iceberg, or crisphead, lettuce is mostly water, with few nutrients, but it ships and stores well
• Romaine lettuceromaine.html (of Caesar salad fame) contains high levels of folic acid, which allows it to help battle depression and infertility. Romaine is also called ‘cos’ for the Greek island of Cos, where it was grown extensively.
• Loose leaf, cutting, or bunching lettuce can be found in many shapes, colors, and textures. Leaves may be smooth, frilly, curled, notched, or scalloped. Leaf lettuce contains plenty of Vitamin K, which helps promote bone strength.
• Bibb, Boston, or butterhead lettuce (one of my favorites) is a tender, sweet tasting, loosely formed head (that works beautifully for Lettuce Wraps!)
• Summercrisp, or French crisp, lettuce is another cross between crisphead and loose leaf, but larger and sturdier than the Bibb variety.

Loose leaf and romaine lettuces can be harvested in a cut and grow method, in which outer leaves are removed for consumption and the plant is allowed to continue providing edible leaves for the entire growing period.

How to grow lettuce

Lettuce, like spinach, tends to bolt when it gets really hot outside, so fall, winter, and spring are the best times of year for growing lettuce in warm regions. Lettuce can be grown in containers, in the ground, or on a window sill. Lettuce prefers sun, but it can grow just fine in shade gardens, too! In spite of its taproot, lettuce does not need a particularly large or deep container to provide you with fresh leaves for your sandwich or salad. 

Lettuce seeds are really tiny, so don’t try planting outside on a windy day. (Yep, I learned that one the Hard Way.) Seeds only need to be covered with 1/4” of soil, but they must be kept moist until they germinate. Spacing between plants depends entirely on the variety. Keep planting new seeds every few weeks, in succession, for a continuous harvest. 

Bolting

Once temperatures start rising, your lettuce plants will probably bolt, or go to seed. You can tell this is happening because your docile, rounded lettuce plants will suddenly send up a spike of growth from the center that looks very un-lettuce-like. If you allow this to continue, and I urge you to do so, your lettuce plant will become too bitter to eat, but it will produce flowers and seeds for future generations. I allow my lettuce plants to go to seed and let them fall where they will. (You can also wrap bags around flowering heads to collect seeds.) I now have an attractive foodscape, with all sorts of lettuces growing in all sorts of places. Unless it’s the peak of summer, I can create a fresh salad with a variety of lettuces simply by walking around my backyard!

Lettuce pests & diseases

​Aphids are a lettuce plant’s worst enemy, with snails and slugs being a close second. Earwigs, cutworms, weevils, rabbits, and voles will all be attracted to your lettuce plants, and white mold can sometimes be a problem. 

Finally, any packet of lettuce seeds that you buy will have far more seeds than you will be able to use in a growing season. Solution: invite your friends over for a seed-luck. What's a seed-luck? That's when everyone brings a packet of a different type of lettuce (or other) seed, a dessert, and a bottle of wine. You will need to provide little packets or envelopes for guests to (decorate and) use to take their bounty home. A good time is sure to be had by all, and everyone ends up with a bigger variety of plants!

You can grow Romaine on a windowsill, in a container, on a balcony, in a traditional garden or sprinkle it around your landscape. Wherever and however you grow Romaine, you’ll be glad you did.

Romaine is high in folate, which has been shown to boost male fertility and reduce depression for everyone. The CDC ranks Romaine as the 9th healthiest food you can eat to prevent chronic disease. Hey, and it tastes pretty good on a burger, too!

How to grow Romaine lettuce

Plant Romaine seeds 1/2 inch deep and several inches apart (just picture how large a head of Romaine gets). Water thoroughly at first and then as needed to prevent wilting. One cool thing about Romaine is that you can regrow a head from the stem at the base of the head. Simply place it in a container that can hold 1/2 inch of water, Pyrex baking pans work well and you can always find them at a thrift store for practically nothing. You will need to change out the water every day, but then you can use that water on houseplants, the lawn, or anywhere in the landscape. Once roots develop, move your lettuce into soil for the best growth. To harvest, simply break off outer leaves as you need them, or cut the whole head off and restart the base in water all over again. Just don't start with a grocery store head of Romaine. Grocery store produce is (usually) safe to eat, but that does not mean it is safe to plant. It may be carrying pests or diseases that can take decades to eradicate from your garden.

​Earwigs, cutworms, rabbits, and uncaged chickens can cause problems in your Romaine patch.

Planting your Romaine near garlic and chives is said to reduce aphids, but I don't know if that's true or not.

Garden space for artichokes

Artichokes can be grown practically anywhere, but they are large plants, averaging 4 to 6 feet across, so be sure to give them room to grow. They prefer cool, moist summers (or relatively shady spots) and mild winters. Most artichokes are grown in California's central and coastal areas. While treated as annuals, artichoke plants can be grown as perennials, producing edible buds for 4 or 5 years. Under the right conditions, you may harvest as many as 30 artichokes per plant per year. Artichoke plants prefer light soil (add compost!), water in summer, and good drainage in winter.

Artichokes, temperatures, and propagation

Timing is critical when starting artichokes from seed and when selecting varieties. The heirloom varieties ('Violetta Precoce', 'Green Globe', or 'Romanesco') are very temperature sensitive and will not grow well in northern regions. 'Opera' and 'Imperial Star' are better choices for colder areas.

Traditionally, artichokes are a warm-weather crop that can be propagated vegetatively or by planting seeds. Vegetative propagation refers to division and root cuttings. Varieties that perform better through vegetative propagation include Italy’s large purple 'Romanesco', Spain’s medium green 'Blanca de Tudela', and Peru’s spiky 'Spinoso e Inguano'.

To divide an artichoke plant, simply wait for new growth to appear in spring. Sink a shovel between the new shoot and the parent plant, lifting the new growth with the shovel and transplanting it elsewhere. Root cuttings can be taken from established plants and placed in a favorable growth medium (moist soil) and allowed to create a new stem and become a complex, independent plant.

​How to grow artichokes from seed

There are several varieties of artichoke that perform well when grown from seed, but it may take a period of vernalization before flowering begins. Green Harmony or Symphony and purple Opal, Concerto, or Tempo can all be grown from seed. Since artichokes have deep taproots, they are not well suited to container gardening. Seedlings need delicate handling when transplanting. It is easiest to plant seeds in the ground where you want them to give the taproot the freedom to grow deeply and without interruption. Plant artichoke seeds 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep when temperatures will be in the 70 - 75º range for a few weeks.

Feeding artichokes

Artichokes are heavy feeders. Side dress each plant with fertilizer or aged compost and water it in thoroughly, rather than digging it in. Each mature plant will need 1/10 of a pound of nitrogen at the beginning of the growing season. Plants will also benefit from 1 cup of ammonium sulfate and 2/3 cup of ammonium nitrate during the harvest season. If you prefer a more natural approach, like I do, just keep mulching the area around each plant with aged compost. Blood meal can provide nitrogen.

Artichoke pests and diseases

Aphids and slugs are an artichoke plant’s most common pests. At the end of each growing season, you can thwart many of these pests by cutting the stems to ground level and covering them with mulch. Artichoke plume moths can be a problem in perennial beds. Artichoke curly dwarf is a viral disease that causes stunting and dark, necrotic (dead) spots. To avoid this problem, use only disease-free stock. Botrytis, or gray mold, is a fungal disease that occurs after extended periods of warm, wet weather.

Harvest your artichokes when they are about the size of an apple for the best flavor and tenderness.

A funny side note about artichokes: the fleshy leaves contain a chemical called cynarine that inhibits taste receptors, making water and other things taste sweeter!

Did you know that artichokes are also used to make tea and liquor?

Now you know.​