Fennel and Fern » Splendid salad: chicory

February 16, 2012

by F&F

If you’re looking for another variety of leaf to grow as part of the 52-week salad challenge, you’d be a fool not to try chicory. It is a wonderful winter salad plant, with stunning good looks to boot. It is easy to grow, and provides leafy bulk and strong flavour for salads in the middle of the winter.

To ensure you have supplies stretching from the summer all through to early spring, sow seeds in modules or toilet roll tubes every four weeks from mid spring right through to the end of the summer. You can also direct-sow the plants and thin to 30cm apart.

You can pick the leaves from the plants individually, or cut the whole hearted plant at an inch above ground level, leaving a stump and the lowest leaves of the plant. You’ll get another crop from this stump within a few weeks.

In the winter, mulch the crops with straw to prevent rotting, and protect with cloches or fleece in very cold weather.

The best varieties

There are three main types of chicory: red-leaved, green-leaved and root chicory. Red-leaved chicories have wonderful bright foliage which at its heart is a stunning mix of white and hot pink or deep red. You can blanch these chicories to encourage a beautiful range of colours and a sweeter taste. Good varieties include: ‘Cesare’, ‘Versuvio’, ‘Sottomarina’.

Green-leaved chicories can also be blanched by growing in the dark to produce white ‘chicons’. They include sugar-loaf chicories, which resemble large cos lettuces and blanch themselves partially at their hearts. Good varieties are: ‘Sugar loaf’, ‘Poncho’, ‘Jupiter F1′.

Root chicories are grown not for their leaves but for what goes on beneath the surface. If you want to try them, have a go with ‘Apollo’.

Don’t forget to follow others taking part in the salad challenge on twitter using the hashtag #saladchat. And if you don’t have your own blog but want to write a post about your own experience of the challenge, then use our Your Blogs section.