Endive Romanesca Da Taglio – 200 Seeds

Endive is now gaining a large following as it has a slightly more biting flavour than lettuce. Roman cutting endive with thin, jagged upright leaves that grow in small bunches. This is a very easy variety to grow and use and it has a long sowing season. Don’t be tempted to sow them in the spring along with your other lettuces, you wont get very good results. It’s an endive, not a lettuce, even if it looks more like a lettuce. They need heat initially to germinate and start their journey, and then cold to develop. Most varieties are very hardy and will tolerate sub-zero. There are several varieties of escarole and endive; the open-headed ones should be tied up about seven to ten days before harvest to blanch the heart and make them tender. Or you can just stick a bucket on top and, when you harvest that head, move the bucket to the next one. Be lazy – use an elastic band. Be even lazier and plant them closer than the standard 20 cm apart, so they all bunch up and blanch themselves.