Listen to our radio show: SEEDS AND THEIR PEOPLE!
Ice-bred Arugula
Eruca sativa
With a strong, excellent flavor, this arugula is extra cold hardy, vigorous, and genetically diverse. Along with their Mizuna Landrace and many other tasty greens, Ice-bred Arugula is an essential part of Tobacco Road Farm's ever-popular Spicy Salad Mix.
In 1989, Brett Grohsgal of Even Star Organic Farm in Eastern Shore, Maryland bred this open pollinated landrace from two Dutch strains of arugula and selected for cold hardiness. Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, Connecticut has been growing these spicy greens every winter for nearly a decade, continuing to select for winter hardiness in even colder conditions. For winter growing, we plant in November and cover with hoops and plastic row covers until the warmth of spring. The photo above shows a late-spring planting of arugula at Tobacco Road Farm, and how their natural farming and soil building practices produced an early June crop with no flea beetle damage.
Days to maturity: 21-44
Seeds per pack: 200
Germination rate: 92% on 10/17/2023
Planting / harvesting notes
Seed every 1" in rows 8-12" apart, 1/4-1/2" deep. Keep watered until germination. Thin to every 4-6" for full heads, or treat as cut-and-come-again baby greens. Harvest baby greens after 21 days, or allow plant to mature in 44 days.
Seed keeping notes
Isolate by 1/2 mile from other flowering Arugulas (Eruca sativa), to avoid unwanted cross-pollination. Allow seed pods to turn brown and dry before seed harvest. Protect from birds.
