How to Grow Endive
Instruction & Advice for Growing Endive
in Your Vegetable Garden
| Nutrition | Watering Instructions | Harvesting |
| Climate | Fertilizing Instructions | Storage |
| Soil | Challenges | Tips |
| Planting |
Endive is a lovely salad vegetable (annual), with a slightly bitter taste, but that provides a nice bit of texture to a salad plate. Curly endive has a loose head with frilly leaves, and Escarole has broad thick leaves. Being similar to lettuce, endive has the same basic requirements, but is more tolerant of hot weather.
Gardening Advice Tip: Covering endive with straw for a couple of weeks (just before you harvest), will reduce this vegetable's bitterness. Or you can blanch them by pulling the outside leaves together over the heart of the plant, and tie the tips together (so the inside of the plant is covered by the outside). Leave tied up this way in your garden for 2 weeks before harvesting.
Nutrition Information: (back to top)
Endive provides: dietary fiber, chromium, potassium, copper, iron, manganese, vitamin E, A, C, K, magnesium, phospherous, thiamin, riboflavin, folate, pantothenic acid, calcium, iron, potassium, zinc
Climate & Growing Conditions: (back to top)
Endive will grow best in your garden as a cool season crop. Curly endive is the most cold tolerant. If you have a hot spell, try to shade these plants until the hot spell passes.
Grow endive in direct sun (but it will accept partial sun, if needed).
How to Prepare the Garden Soil: (back to top)
Growing endive requires garden soil with good drainage and that has been well worked. Prepare the gardening bed with compost and well-rotted manure, kept close to the surface (endive has shallow roots). Endive will grow best in soils that are slightly acidic with a pH of from 5 to 6. (Instructions: How to test your garden soil pH level.)
After the plants have started to establish themselves, mulch around them to even out soil temperatures, retain moisture and keep weeds down.
How to Plant: (back to top)
You can often do multiple plantings of this vegetable during a gardening season. For example, plant for an early spring crop, and for another in the fall.
If you’re planting seedlings, be sure to plant well before the temperatures get hot. (Heat makes endive bolt and go to seed.)
Water the garden bed where you plan to plant your endive seed. Plant your seeds shallowly - at 1/4" deep, in rows that are about 20" apart.
Germination normally takes up to 2 weeks. After the endive has been growing for 1 month in your garden, thin them so they're spaced 12” apart.(Use the thinned plants for a tender salad!)
How to Water: (back to top)
The secret to growing endive is to water it regularly. If it's roots dry out, you will have a very crop. Do not use overhead sprinklers, as the water gets caught inside the vegetable's head and can make it rot. As a general gardening rule, overhead sprinklers are not the best irrigation choice for any plant. They waste so much water, and can damage the plants.
How to Fertilize: (back to top)
Several weeks before planting, dig in poultry manure and a complete fertilizer. No need for additional fertilizing.
Gardening Challenges: (back to top)
Endive can experience snails, aphids, and cutworms.
Gardening Advice Tip: Practice good vegetable gardening by rotating your crops within your garden space with each new season. This will prevent many plant diseases.
How to Harvest: (back to top)
Endive reaches maturity within 3 months. Harvest by cutting the head from the root at the soil level.
Gardening Advice Tips (back to top)
Have a helpful gardening tip (or even a fun story) to share about your endive growing experience? Share it with us at: gardeningtips@howtogardenadvice.com
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