belgian endive

Nine Palms Ranch Trial, 2006

Lead: Karen Schaffer

Summary

Belgian endive can be successfully grown in Santa Clara County as a cool weather green. The plants need to be started in the summer. In late fall, they are harvested, trimmed and transplanted into damp sand where they are kept cool and dark. Six plants will yield weekly salad greens from December through March, for as long as the weather stays cool.

Overview

The purpose of the project was to determine the best timing for planting and forcing Belgian endive in Santa Clara County’s unique climate.

Belgian endive needs to grow in the ground for about four months, then the roots are dug up, replanted in sand, and kept cool and dark while the chicons (the resprouting heads, pronounced shee-COHn) develop. In most places, this forcing phase of growing Belgian endive requires using temperature-controlled rooms, but with our milld winters, we suspected we could leave our bins outside and simply let nature do the work for us. Our 2003-2004 trials proved this conjecture correct.

But when we grew Belgian endive two years ago, we started seedlings in August and transplanted them in October. We then dug the roots in February for forcing. We only got one chicon harvest because the weather was already warming up by then. We believe that by growing the plants over the summer and starting the forcing just as the weather turns cold, we could get harvests all through the winter.

Soil preparation

The plot was cover cropped with fava beans which were cut down and rototilled into the beds in April, along with some aged horse manure.

Seeding/planting