Friday, October 17, 2008

Wild Arugula

One of our most popular specialty crops is wild arugula Arugula Rustica. One of the seed catalogues we buy from says that it is the true Italian arugula. We do like it better than the common variety, it is tastier and spicier. It is a perennial rather than an annual like the garden variety and we let it seed itself all over the garden and just weed around it.
The flowers are yellow instead of white and it makes quite a big bush if you leave it alone. The bees also love the flowers so that it is providing a late nectar crop. We call it feral arugula for the way it has come to grow all over the farm. Harvesting it means hunting it out among the lilies and dahlias and beets.

We are about to take off for the last outdoor Farmers Market of the year. The weather is cloudy and it keeps threatening to rain but it isn't really cold. In two weeks we'll start the winter market, this year indoors in the high school commons.

2 comments:

  1. As I was about to switch my computer off I saw you had posted another blog so just had to read it. I don't know the plant at all - is it a herb?
    I love your farmers markets - once bought some fiddle shoots in a Canadian market somewhere - they were delicious.

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  2. You may know the white flowered annual variety as Rocket. This is a cousin.

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