Sow in July, harvest all autumn: endive, radicchio & napa cabbage
Early potatoes, garlic and onions are clearing out of your beds right now — and that's exactly your opportunity: three autumn salads want to go into the ground now.
By mid-July the garden year feels almost fully planned – yet the second half of the season is only just beginning. Sow endive, radicchio and napa cabbage within the next two to three weeks and you’ll be picking fresh salads from September well into November. Here’s which crop goes in when, and how to get seeds germinating despite the summer heat.
Why the window is opening right now
Early potatoes are dug, the garlic is hanging up to dry, the first onions are out: in July, open patches suddenly appear in the beds – often just when many gardeners assume the sowing season is over. Yet autumn salads only need 8 to 14 weeks from seed to harvest. Whatever you sow in the next two to three weeks will land on your plate between September and November. Leave it much later and the heads may not mature before the first harder frosts.
Endive: the dependable classic
Endive is the most reliable of the three. You can sow it directly into the bed now, or start it in trays and transplant from early August – spacing plants about 30 cm apart in all directions. One thing matters when planting: keep the heart of the plant clear of soil, otherwise the head can rot from the inside. Endive tolerates light frost and keeps producing crisp heads well into November. Whether you go for smooth-leaved varieties or the frilly frisée type is a matter of taste – they’re grown the same way.
Radicchio: bitter, beautiful and good in storage
Radicchio forms firm, wine-red heads in autumn that brighten up any salad plate. Sowing time runs from June to mid-July – so this is your last good chance. The same rules apply: roughly 30 cm spacing and a sunny spot. The nice part: after the first cool nights the bitterness mellows and the flavour rounds out. Firm heads also keep for several weeks in a cool cellar – a genuine storage salad for late autumn.
Napa cabbage: the timing vegetable
With napa cabbage, the calendar decides. Sow it too early in the year and the long days make it bolt into flower instead of forming heads. That’s why mid-July to early August is its classic sowing window – directly into the bed, as it dislikes root disturbance. At just 8 to 10 weeks from seed to harvest, it’s surprisingly quick. One more thing: napa cabbage is a brassica. An insect mesh placed right after sowing keeps flea beetles and cabbage white butterflies away, and it shouldn’t go where cabbage, radishes or rocket already grew this year.
The evening trick for stubborn seeds
One hurdle remains: the heat. Endive and radicchio belong to the daisy family, and their seeds germinate noticeably worse once soil temperatures climb above roughly 20 °C. The simplest fix: sow in the evening and water generously, letting the night cool the seedbed down. Keep the seed row consistently moist until emergence, and shade it with a board or fleece during heatwaves. Or start seeds in trays in a cooler, bright spot – then the germination problem never reaches the bed at all.
How to refill the gaps wisely
Crop rotation works in your favour here: as members of the daisy family, endive and radicchio are uncomplicated successors on patches where garlic or onions just grew. Napa cabbage, on the other hand, is better placed where no brassica relatives have grown this year – the freshly cleared early-potato bed, for example. In Rootivo, simply mark the harvested plant as fully harvested in the bed editor – the crop-rotation picker will then suggest suitable successors for that exact spot.
Im Lexikon: Endivie