Saturday Spotlight – Wild Rocket

I had a lot of issues with my lettuces this summer – they kept bolting in the hot weather.  Thank goodness for my Wild Rocket though, which gave us lovely salad leaves throughout the warmer months.

Wild Rocket differs it’s wider leafed cousin Salad Rocket in a number of ways.  Although both are brassicas wild rocket is perennial and happy in my micro climate throughout the year.  It flowers and self seeds happily, while producing leaves without any trace of bitterness.

It is a bushy spreading plant.  I planted out 3 small seedlings in Spring and they now occupy a full square metre in the bed and would have spread further but for some judicious pruning and a whole lot of harvesting.

Wild Rocket can be sown, either direct or into seed trays throughout the year in Melbourne.   Seedlings can be planted out at any time.  It grows relatively slowly initially but when it gets going it is plentiful and comparatively trouble free.

I know some people who have had issues with cabbage whites attacking their rocket plants but so far mine have been relatively immune.  Otherwise I am unaware of any major pest issues.

I use rocket regularly in salads, on pizza as a fresh topping,  and occasionally in pesto.  Flavour-wise it has the pepperiness of salad rocket with a more delicate leaf structure.  To me it is at its best with onion, pear, Parmesan and a nice vinaigrette.

Do you grow rocket?  If so is it a wild or salad variety?  Or both?

Saturday Spotlight is a series of posts highlighting particular varieties of edible plants.  If you have a favourite, or even a less than successful variety of a plant and would like to include it in the series then please leave a comment with a link below.    I have created a page (above, just below the header) with an Index of all the Spotlights to date.   I will add links to any new posts below and in next weeks post as well as ensuring they appear in the Index. 

New Spotlights last week were:

Flamingo Chard – From Seed to Table

And from this week:

Pennsylvania Dutch Crooknecked Squash – Our Happy Acres