PlantSowGrow
How to grow Wild Rocket
Diplotaxis tenuifolia
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
Narrow, deeply cut leaves with a stronger, more peppery bite than salad rocket. Slow to bolt and perennial — it keeps going for years.
At a glance: Sow early April to mid August, harvest from mid May.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Wild Rocket: what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water regularly in dry weather
- Soil
- Fertile, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 20 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- A general feed before sowing or planting
- Harvest
- About 50 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Early April – mid August · 2 weeks before the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly in drills where they are to grow.
- 5–10 days after “Sow Seeds Outdoors” · Early April – mid April
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 5–10 days. If sown outdoors, thin to 20 cm apart when big enough to handle.
- 40–61 days after “Check Germination” · Mid May – early June
Start Harvesting
Pick leaves as needed; cut the whole plant back to 5 cm if it gets tough and it will regrow.
- 150–180 days after “Start Harvesting” · Mid October – mid November
Finish and Clear
Cut plants back in late autumn; they reshoot next spring.
More vegetables to grow
Photo: Leo Michels User:Der Michels / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
