Happy Urban Dirt

Growing rocket without tillage is a plain and environmentally cordial way to produce your own food. These greens can be used on pizza, salads, and as a garnish for almost any dish. By following these steps, you’ll be ready to harvest arugula within a year.

Below is an excerpt from Living Soil Handbook By Jesse FrostIt has been adapted to the web.

Growing rocket without tillage

Arugula is a popular lettuce that we can sell year-round to the general public. It is also a fast-germinating variety that works well in no-till systems because of the ease with which it can be destroyed.

Varieties of rocket

We are growing Astro throughout the year. We also had good success with Esme in the spring.

Estimated amount of seeds

When buying seed, assume 0.2 ounces (6 g) per 100-foot (30 m) row—six rows means 1.2 ounces (34 g) per 30-inch (75 cm) wide bed. Once you have determined the total amount of seed you need, you will usually buy an extra ounce (28g) or two (57g) just in case. If there are any seeds left at the end of the season, I usually mix them with cover crop seeds (which are easily destroyed in winter in our region).

Preparing the bed

Arugula seeds need good soil contact and moisture to germinate, but germination is quick compared to other crops—2 days when the soil is 65–80°F (18–27°C). If sown in compost and the compost is parched to the touch a few hours after watering, it is not holding enough moisture to germinate evenly.

In a deep composting system, you can lightly tamp the compost to raise moisture retention – a weighted bed roller is effective before or even after planting. If you are not working with a deep composting system, remember that arugula does not grow well in compacted native soilsand compaction must be removed before sowing.

Weed control

As a 20-30 day crop, arugula outpaces most weedsbut if you want to harvest a second crop, you need to deal with the weeds first, otherwise they will contaminate the seedling. Mulching helps control weeds. Weathering the soil before planting is also effective. Either way, make sure you don’t plant the rocket in a weedy bed and do one crop before the rocket canopy fills out. Also, remove weeds by hand before harvesting – this is easier to do in the field than when washing and packing.

Pest control

From autumn to early spring we don’t have a major problem with flea beetles, but in summer we cover the rocket to reduce the occurrence of tiny holes characteristic of this pest.

Although most of our beds do not suffer from flea beetle pressure, we generally do not risk leaving the crop exposed for fear of losing the plantings. A lithe covering of the rows can protect the arugula from most pests.

Seeder

For youthful arugula we exploit the Jang JP-1 with the tines set at 9 in the back and 14 in the front. We exploit the YYJ-24 roller with the brush down. For years we have used the EarthWay with the cabbage and turnip disc to plant arugula with great success.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds four-row and six-row precision drills are very effective, but not for drilling through chunky compost. Mulch tends to clump in front of the drill – the four-row is worse than the six-row.

We have transplanted arugula in the past, but because of the density and number of plants needed, it can be very laborious to get a worthwhile planting unless you are selling “bunch arugula.” The Paper Pot planter from Paperpot Co. is another option that we have tried with some success, but arugula is such an effortless crop to direct-sow in tunnels almost year-round in our climate that we do not find transplanting necessary.

Spacing

The goal is to have a dense strip of plants in a row around in quarter to half inch (6 to 13 mm) increments. In spring and summer, sow seven or eight rows per 30-inch (75 cm) bed. In winter, sow only six rows per bed in the tunnel to provide more airflow.

Harvest and crops

Speed ​​and cleanliness are key elements of successful rocket harvesting. If you plan on growing a lot of arugula, the Farmers Friend Quick-cut Greens Harvester is a must. It’s costly, but it can cut your harvesting time from half an hour to just a few minutes per 50-foot (15 m) bed.

The time savings alone, a few beds of rocket cut with Quick-cut will cover its high cost. When using Quick-cut, always harvest the rocket early, before the heat sets in. If the rocket is starting to shoot but still has good leaves, harvest it with a knife, trying to prevent the rocket from shooting.

Washing rocket

We wash the arugula gently and spin it in a salad spinner (which was converted from a washing machine). The bags are packed to the weight we need (in the market it is 0.20 pounds) [90 g]). Water always increases the risk of contamination, so if the leaves are immaculate at harvest, we do not wash the arugula later to avoid the risk of pathogens.

The auger attached to the Quick-cut Harvester drives serrated blades that do the cutting and also drives spinning green brushes that gently push material into a green canvas collection “hopper.” This cutting and collection system allows several feet of material to be collected at a time before stopping to unload the hopper.

From the first harvest we expect about one pound (450 g) per bed foot (30 inches) [75 cm] The second crop produces three-quarters of a pound (340 g) or less per bed, and yields continue to decline with subsequent harvests.

A tip I got from Ben Hartman book The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables involves lightly raking the rocket bed after harvesting to remove fallen leaves that can rot on the fresh shoots and contaminate the next harvest.

Catch crops

Although we do very little cover planting with arugula, we have found that it produces quite well in tunnels under nightshades in early April plantings when it is not yet necessary to cover the rows. Arugula works well in relay planting, where sections in the arugula beds are removed in early spring to make room for longer-term crops such as tomatoes.

Marketing

We pack arugula for market at 0.20 pounds (90 g) per bag. When we sell it in the marketing system, we charge three dollars for one product or five dollars for two products. That’s $12.50 to $15 per pound (450 g). If you want to avoid plastic bags, you can certainly do that.

Grower Stephen Ciancioso of Buena Vista Gardens in Hawaii has put a lot of thought and work into reducing his plastic exploit. Stephen has been using NatureFlex biodegradable bags for several years and recommends them. The bags are available from a number of online suppliers.

Hardest Season: Summer

The challenge with summer arugula is twofold:heat makes germination complex and reduces the number of cuts because plants tend to shoot earlier, which affects yield. The arugula can be misted several times a day on radiant days to frosty it down. For these reasons, we prefer to grow arugula in tunnels all summer, because the plastic barrier provides a bit of shade. In the field in summer, we provide this shade by covering the arugula with insect netting.

Known Failures

Summer is also the time when our rocket is most exposed to pressure from flea beetles.. We need to cover the rocket to protect it from beetles. We used to exploit row covers, but even when we used the lightest covers, we often lost some or all of the crop due to rot or simply overheating. Investing in fine-mesh ProtekNet netting, although costly, made a huge difference.

It protects the arugula without suffocating it with trapped heat. We hope to eventually reach a point where we don’t need to cover the arugula in the summer. We think this is a realistic goal, as we have observed that as soil quality improves, the population of ground flea beetles decreases. However, growing rocket without cover is a goal that must be approached slowly and carefully, using tools like ProtekNet if necessary.

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