Rocket: Cultivation, Origin & Varieties of Rocket

Rocket: great taste and healthy! With our tips, the easy-care salad vegetables can be easily cultivated in your garden.

The Italian term rocket has also become common with us. However, two closely related plant genera hide behind the name. Usually, on the local vegetable shelves, you can find the usual rocket salad (Eruca sativa) Find. Sometimes the wild rocket (Diplotaxis tenuifolia) but their leaves are smaller and more narrowly pinnated than those of the common rocket. While the salad rocket is usually only cultivated once a year, the wild rocket can be grown for several years.

The Germans already knew how to appreciate the wild plant and, according to tradition, brought it to northern Italy during their raids. While the rocket was forgotten in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, it spread rapidly in Italy and parts of France. Only in the 20th and 21 In the 19th century, when Italian cuisine became a trend in Germany, arugula was back on our domestic menu.

Synonyms: Rocket, Rukola, mustard rocket, Ruke, rocket (engl.), arugula (engl.)

Arugula cultivation: perfect for beginners!

Both the salad rocket and the wild rocket can be grown in the garden without any problems. It is a very grateful and easy-care plant. Since the former is somewhat more common and fast-growing among home gardeners, we will focus on this below.

Rocket prefers a nutrient-rich, loose, humus-rich soil. Poor and dry soil should be improved with compost. This increases both the nutrient content and the ability to retain moisture. Alternatively, you can also use an already pre-fertilized soil like ours Plantura organic universal soil use. Sunny to semi-shady locations are well suited.

Rocket can be planted out in spring. If you still have a bright window sill, you can sow here from mid-March. The young plants can be released outdoors from mid-April. On the windowsill, the young seedlings can be harvested and processed in a similar way to garden cress. Outdoors, in warmer regions, seeds are sown from the end of March, otherwise from the beginning of April. The distance between the plants is about 5 cm for salad rocket and 15 cm for wild rocket. The row spacing should be about 15-20 cm. If the soil is always kept moist, the seeds will germinate in sufficiently warm weather after 10 to 16 days. Even if arugula sprout again after a careful harvest and can thus be harvested several times, subsequent sowing should take place at intervals of one month.

Even if rocket grows slowly at first, it should not be fertilized excessively. After a few weeks, salad rocket grows very quickly and can soon be harvested for the first time. To prevent too high a nitrate content, you should use a low-nitrogen fertilizer like ours Plantura organic tomato fertilizer to be worked. While arugula doesn't need a lot of water, it can quickly suffer from water shortage stress during a long drought. With arugula, drought-induced stress causes the plant to start flowering. Unfortunately, the harvest ends at the time of flowering.
It is important that weeds are regularly weeded so that they do not overgrow the small arugula plants.

A detailed step-by-step guide can be found here: Growing arugula: sowing, care and harvest time.

Varieties: Spoiled for choice between wild rocket and salad rocket

A comprehensive overview of varieties can be found here: Rocket varieties: overview of wild rocket and rocket salad varieties.

wild rocket

• Dragon's tongue: Breeding from England, which has proven to be very robust with regard to various growing conditions; around the leaf veins, the leaf green turns reddish in places; very good and spicy aroma.
• Venice: fast-growing selection of wild rocket with a late flowering time; this allows for a long harvest and high yields; typical nutty and spicy taste.
• Naples: selection of wild rocket; grows faster than the wild form and produces broader leaves (may also be a hybrid with rocket rocket); high yield.

salad rocket

• Speedy: as the name suggests, a presumably fast-growing hybrid of wild rocket and salad rocket; spicy and piquant aroma; Suitable for outdoor cultivation as well as on the windowsill.
• coltivate: fast-growing, robust and broad-leaved variety of rocket salad; popular in Italy because of its very good aroma.
• pronto: modern cultivated form of rocket rocket with very fast growth; good taste.
• buzzy: a variety mostly used to make arugula sprouts.
• wild fire: new variety with broad, light green leaves; In terms of taste, Wildfire is said to be quite spicy and slightly reminiscent of Japanese wasabi.
• Sylvetta: fast-growing variety with fine leaves and an early flowering time; good, slightly nutty aroma.

Notice: The variety "Agano" is often sold as a red-leaved variant of the wild rocket, but belongs to the brown mustard (Brassicajuncea).

Harvesting and storage of arugula

Depending on the location and the time of year, the harvest can begin after four or a maximum of seven weeks. At this time, the leaves are mostly five to eight centimeters long. If you want to protect the stock, only the outer leaves should be harvested so that the plant can sprout. If this is too time-consuming, you can cut off the plants at a height of three to four centimeters with sharp scissors. The plant recovers quickly and thrives.

Only as much should be harvested as is directly consumed. Arugula will only keep in the fridge for up to two days. The best way to do this is to wrap the leaves in a damp kitchen towel. Alternatively, you can process arugula into pesto and make it durable. Unfortunately, drying and freezing are not suitable for preservation, as this means that the aroma and texture are lost.

diseases and pests

Now and then she can too Clubroot become a problem. Beds should not have been planted with arugula or brassicas for a sufficient amount of time prior to cultivation. If the soil is very dry, there are also problems with the culture in the foil tunnel or greenhouse flea beetles.

Ingredients and use in the kitchen

In addition to some vitamins and minerals, arugula has a very high mustard oil content. These, also called mustard oil glycosides, have a positive influence on the human immune system. Arugula is healthy, but especially arugula from the supermarket should not be consumed in excessive quantities. Because rocket stores a lot of nitrate, especially in greenhouse culture and intensive fertilization. Therefore, there is a clear advantage in growing rocket yourself. You should avoid nitrogen-rich fertilization and it is best to harvest the leaves in the afternoon when the nitrate content is lowest.

Most often, arugula leaves find their way into salads. Arugula can also be boiled and added to pasta. Or you fry the leaves briefly and eat them as an accompaniment to grilled meat. Similar to the Pesto alla Genovese, the recipe can also be made with rocket. Here you simply replace the basil with the rocket and et voilà!

Another little tip: If you forget to harvest, you can remove the seeds contained in the seed pods and use them for cooking as well. The taste is reminiscent of mustard seeds.

Arugula has - among other things - a high content of vitamin C. You can find out which other types of vegetables this applies to in our special article Vegetables with a lot of vitamin C.