Arugula is one of the easiest, fastest-growing greens for your garden. Scatter some seeds, water them in, and a week later, you’ll have tiny seedlings ready to take on the world.
Growing Arugula
Arugula is a cool-weather crop that, in Central Texas, thrives in the shoulder seasons (fall and early spring). Arugula prefers rich, well-drained soil but it doesn’t necessarily need it. And it likes sun, but it always appreciates a little shade when the temperatures creep up.
Arugula will die in deep freezes, but we can often keep it going all winter by cutting back all the big foliage and covering the base with a mason jar. It just takes keeping one plant alive to have abundant seeds for future plantings. We always save plenty of seeds and we always allow some plants to self-seed because they know best where they want to grow.
Harvesting Arugula
Along with chicory, another low-maintenance food plant we like to grow, arugula grows fast and offers an abundance of leafy greens. Just snip off the outer leaves and let the center keep producing. Arugula is a great plant for succession planting. Sow a new patch every couple of weeks, and you’ll be swimming in greens for months.
Working with Arugula
Arugula (also called rocket or roquette) is known for its bitter, peppery, nutty flavor. It’s the kind of nutrient-dense leafy green that turns a basic salad or sandwich into a gourmet meal. Arugula will increase in bitterness as the weather warms or the leaves mature, so we prefer harvesting the young greens before the plant has gone to flower. The flowers are edible too, with a mild spiciness.
Arugula in the Garden Ecosystem
Arugula is a great companion plant in the garden. It works well as a tall border plant, in containers, or sprinkled throughout a garden bed in a “chaos gardening” kind of style.
Why is arugula such a great plant to grow?
Soil Builder - If regenerative gardening is your goal, think about all that excellent biomass arugula provides. Like comfrey or borage or artichoke, a arugula is a fabulous chop and drop crop. You can chop down all that leafy top growth multiple times and use it as a green mulch or add it to your compost pile. All that foliage will keep weeds in check and feed your soil.
Pollinator Attractor - If you let arugula flower, the plants make beautiful pollinator magnets. Bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects will thank you for those clusters of creamy white blooms.
Self-Seeder - Once arugula bolts, it can easily self-seed. Let a few seed pods drop where they may, and you’ll find new plants popping up just when you’re ready for them. Like perennials, self-seeding plants are gifts
—self-renewing crops that save you time and effort.