Arugula 2019

binnylou , those seeds can be direct sowed. They grow fast and don't like summer-like heat.
Arugula becomes spicier if/when grown in warmer weather. Still good and edible, but much more pungent.
Also, the heat makes it bloom and go to seed.

And yes, you can plant the clump as it is. If you have a shadier spot available, plat arugula there.

Mine must be bolting now as what looks like a flower is developing in the center. Still taste good and does seem a little spicier. Wilts faster than lettuce if left out. We have some sort of little black bug here that eats holes in it, about the size of a flea. Sure wish I could figure out how to get rid of them. Weird, they don't eat anything else.

My overwintered arugula is bolting, but my spring plantings are now at pick-able size. Direct-sown, it was sprouting in 36 hours.

When I first started gardening in earnest, it was tomatoes, peppers, okra, etc. , the usual things. Arugula was one of the first things I tried on a lark, as I had never heard of it before. I've grown it every year since then.
We use it in salads, but mainly on any sandwich. Well, not PBJ, but pretty much the rest. Love that "rocket lettuce".

lilolpeapicker , I notice that nutty taste along with the peppery. It's almost peanut-ty to my taste and smell. One time my Son, while pulling spent arugula, said, "This stuff almost smells like peanut butter!". Somehow those two great tastes taste great together.

Yeah, arugula is easy to direct-sow, even in my garden (some things have difficulty sprouting in it). Just as a tip, ones started indoors make excellent-tasting microgreens! I agree with the peppery peanut taste for those. For the ones I grew outside, they tasted pretty bitter to me (and not much like peanuts), and were best eaten fresh (cooked the bitterness was stronger). I don't think I've ever transplanted them. The plants don't get very big in my garden, and they seem to be better to eat when they're younger. Kind of hard to harvest, though, IMO (unless you pull up the whole plant), but easy to grow. The roots can get fibrous, if I remember. It reseeds readily if you let it.

Anyone here ever tried wasabi arugula?

gardendmpls ,

I'm not sure if you're talking to me or binnylou, but yeah. I don't grow arugula anymore. Maybe I'd like other kinds more (like the wasabi arugula). I tried a kind that was supposed to be the wild Italian arugula (Diplotaxis tenuifolia), but it looked and tasted exactly like Eruca sativa; I think maybe it was regular arugula.

I just got more interested in other crops with bigger leaves instead (like chicory greens, horseradish greens, collard greens, and swiss chard—still haven't grown collards or chard, yet, though). I love horseradish greens (they're like cabbage in the spring and like hot radishes in the summer). I love chicory, too; it's like lettuce in the spring, but later it turns bitter, but in a different way (it's bitter like grapefruit is bitter).