Love that Arugula!
This is the first time I have planted Arugula and I sure am glad that I did! It grows very fast from seed and is exceptional tasting in salads and other dishes. It is also fairly expensive in stores, and so this is another incentive to plant your own.
I planted the first batch of these in January and have been picking off of them several times weekly. They need to be harvested before they start to flower and/or the weather starts to get too warm because they will then get a bitter taste. From my experience, they will stay fresh for about 1 week once refrigerated.
You can start picking off the outer leaves once they get from 4″ to 6″ or else just pull the whole plant up. It is a good idea to plant more seeds every few weeks so that you have a constant crop - and so that they don’t all mature together. I have been both pulling off larger leaves and pulling up plants as alternative harvesting methods. You can see some smaller plants that I seeded a few weeks ago. On the right side of the pic are mustard greens that I planted a few weeks ago, and also mixed in are some curly cress.
I plan to keep this bed going as long as possible. This will probably be towards the end of may - or until the weather otherwise gets too warm. I like to try and save my valuable planting space for extra tasty and otherwise very desirable edibles, and arugula certainly qualifies. Plant some and you will be glad that you did!
