For home gardeners and for home cooks, endive provides a wonderful alternative to lettuce.
Like lettuce, endive is a cool-season crop, although it's more tolerant of heat than lettuce. Grow it from seed planted in your garden four to six weeks before the average date of last frost. Long, hot summers will force the plant to bolt (go to seed).
If your region has a short, hot growing season, start endive indoors from seed. Transplant it as soon as possible so the plants mature before the weather gets hot.
Starting in midsummer, sow succession crops in well-worked soil with good drainage and water retention. If you're direct-seeding, sow seeds 1/4 inch deep in wide rows. Thin the plants to 9 to l2 inches apart; crowded plants may bolt early. Water regularly to keep the plants growing quickly; lack of water will slow growth and cause the leaves to become bitter. Endive tastes better if you blanch it by tying string around the leaves to hold them together. This deprives the plant of sunlight, discouraging the production of chlorophyll.
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IP019 Bianca Riccia Cichorium endivia
For salad mix, extra cut, fringed leaf, light green, pink petiole, heat and cold tolerant, 35 days.
Member of the chicory family, great addition to a salad with it's distinctive, slightly bitter taste. A good cool weather crop. The leaves are extra-cut and fringed, a unique light green color with pink petiole. Relatively tolerant to heat and cold for growing year-round. Plant as you would lettuce.