<aside> 💡 Although they share the same name, salad and wild rocket are quite different, they share this chapter though because they are harvested in succession, look similar, are both from the brassica family and serve a similar purpose in cooking, although wild rocket has more of a kick.
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I use a rating system to help me decide what to grow and it considers lots of factors! The main ones are taste, healthiness, cost, harvest size, harvest timing, effort and availability in the shops grown organically.
Harvest timing is especially important as I want to avoid summer gluts and winter shortages, so a veg like purple sprouting broccoli, which I harvest in the lean times of winter and spring is more valuable than a summer cauliflower for example.
Rocket scores fairly well in this system, salad rocket better than wild rocket, because it’s available in autumn and winter, when the choice of leafy greens is limited. Both rockets though are tasty, healthy, expensive and difficult to source organically.
Both rockets grow well in containers and in the ground and can cope with light shade. As they have a peppery taste, only small quantities are often needed making them ideal for small spaces, even more so for wild rocket, which has more kick!
Both are best sown in late August/September. Salad rocket gives a good harvest through autumn and then stalls outside in winter, but continues to grow under cover. Wild rocket is over-wintered for a harvest in spring, when salad rocket has gone to seed. Wild rocket will go to seed in early summer, but by then who cares, there’s plenty to eat!
Other sowing times are possible for the enthusiastic, but they are likely to disappoint because of pest problems or plants rapidly running to seed.
<aside> 💡 For more details on the model that I use for describing harvest periods (first earlies, second earlies etc) please see the chapter on my growing framework
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Commercial growers will often grow salad rocket over a much longer period than I recommend here, but they will often achieve only one or two cuts and be growing rapidly under cover. Their objective is many successions, of bulk harvests, to sell at high prices. The home gardener rarely wants this.
In my case I want small quantities, over long periods, mostly grown outside, so as not to take up under-cover winter space that I prefer to use for Asian greens and lettuce.
That’s the context in which I provide these sowing dates, if they don’t work for your needs, read the back of the seed packet.