Green Curled Ruffec Endive is one of the finest endives for crisp and tasty salad. The leaves are thick, tender, and buttery with a distinctive taste. The cluster of inner leaves blanches to creamy yellow/white. A good producer that can be grown early and later in the season.

Curly or curled endive and escarole are cool-weather vegetables; they are varieties of the same plant. Curly endive has curled, ruffled leaves and escarole has smooth leaves. Curly endive is sometimes called frisee.

Endive and escarole are cool-season biennials grown as annuals. Both are salad greens similar to lettuce but stronger flavored. Both are commonly blanched to give them a paler appearance and milder flavor. Both grow from a large rosette of light-green leaves in the center that gradate to dark-green at the outer edges. Escarole has broader leaves; endive is commonly curled and often toothed. Endive is different from Belgian endive which is the young blanched sprout of the chicory plant.

Packet: 9-10 grams of seed

Escarole is usually used cooked, in a pan or blanched . It can be served as a side dish accompanied by aromas or other ingredients or it can be inserted as an ingredient in pizzas and focaccias.

Variety with large, broad and crinkly leaves that curve naturally to form a tall horn-shaped head. Natural blanching. Very resistant to cold. Suitable  for autumn cultivation. SOWING: in rows from July to October. Trasplant when plants have formed 4-5 leaves, at intervals of about 30 cm with about cm between rows.

Upright winter escarole lettuce with very crunchy leaves. A French heirloom escarole, with large, scalloped green leaves and a central leaf core that curls into a horn shape. Cornetto Di Bordeaux Escarole. Mid-Early. Large upright plant with full open head, large dark green external leaves with light green-blond heart. Very early in the formation of the tuft which is large, elongated and typically wrapped . The leaves are a beautiful light green blond color. Late variety.

Endive Escarole is easily grown in cool weather. Sow directly in the garden as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Endive Escarole may also be started as transplants 5 to 8 weeks before setting out. Sow thinly using sterilized seed starter mix, cover lightly and water. Provide light, moderate warmth and good ventilation. A second crop may be sown in late summer to early fall. Grow Endive Escarole quickly with plenty of moisture for the most pleasing taste. Most will bolt (go to seed) and taste a bit unpleasant in hot weather. Amend the soil with moderate amounts of compost and a sprinkling of organic fertilizer. To blanch the tender centers (pale hearts) of Endive Escarole, place a clay flower pot over the plant 2 weeks prior to harvesting. Harvest by cutting the entire head at soil level.

Packet: 9-10 grams of seed

Endive Frisée is a type of chicory that has exploded onto gourmet plates. The exotic plant resembles a lettuce that has gone horribly awry. With a pale green explosion of frizzy leaves it adds a frisky note to green salads.

Frisée or chicorée frisée is French for curly chicory. It also is sometimes called Italian curly chicory or French curly chicory. Now, frisée is not exactly the same vegetable that comes to market as chicory, curly chicory, and curly endive, although it is exactly the same plant, Cichorium endivia.

Grown in, and named after a municipality in northern Italy near Turin. Suitable for both summer and autumn cultivation, it has curly and strongly lobed leaves and a creamy-white self-blanching heart.

With a very large head, long mid-green leaves and a self-bleaching, creamy-white interior, the fullness of the head facilitates tying up for more intense blanching.

Popularised in the 1990s, Frisée often appears in mesclun and other salad mixes, because the green is extremely laborious and expensive to produce as a sole salad ingredient. It is generally served in loose chunks in salad to highlight its exotic feathered appearance and a small amount can go a long way.

While it can have a slightly bitter flavour, frisée is much milder than other varieties of endive such as radicchio or Belgian endive. Tie up for a week before harvesting to blanch.

The sugary chicory of Trieste is a variety of cut chicory with round leaves of a bright blond green color (hence the names blond chicory or very blond chicory). This cut chicory variety starts to vegetate quickly and repeatedly, allowing for many early cycle harvests.

The sugary chicory of Trieste  is a  variety of cut chicory with round leaves of a bright blond green color (hence the names blond  chicory or very blond chicory ).

This  cut chicory variety starts to vegetate quickly and repeatedly, allowing for many early cycle harvests. Due to its rapid development it can also  be grown  in pots . The sowing period is from March to September while the harvest is from April to November.

Growing chicory is easy. Chicory ( Cichorium intybus L.) is a rustic plant, very adaptable but prefers a mild climate because it fears frosts and persistent low temperatures.

The  Trieste sugar  is a variety of  chicory  excellent for the preparation of soups, to accompany meat or fish dishes but also to bring excellent rustic pies to the table. The  sugary chicory of Trieste  appears as a radicchio with large , round and light green leaves with light veins. The secret for an excellent yield of the  cultivation  of this  chicory  is the harvest, the  sugar of Trieste  re- grows after each cut, so, with a single sowing, it is possible to give rise to more crops.

Italiko Rosso Dandelion (Cichorium intybus).

ITALIAN HEIRLOOM

This chicory variety has red stems which add a brilliant colour to salads and other dishes. Leaves are deeply lobed with classic bitter dandelion-like flavour.