Learn how to grow chicory (endive and Italian dandelion) for baby-leaf production: spacing, germination, soil and temperature requirements, and harvesting. Read more for a successful harvest!
Learn how to grow 2 types of chicory — endive and escarole — from seed, from sowing, germination, soil, and temperature requirements, to transplanting, culture, blanching, and harvesting.
A downloadable, printable PDF version of our Radicchio Planting Program, comparing days to maturity, which varieties can be direct-sown versus transplanted, and transplanting/harvesting periods.
Written by our research team, this reference contains the essential information for growing Italian dandelion (Cichorium intybus), including direct-sowing or transplanting, temperature requirements, spacing, and harvesting. Read more for a successful harvest!
Learn how to grow Belgian endive, including root production in the field and the indoor forcing process, harvesting, and storage.
Key Growing Information

Radicchio | Key Growing Information

Written by our research team, this reference contains the essential information for growing radicchio from seed, for full heads, baby leaf, or salad mix. Tips on culture, thermal dormancy, direct-sowing, and transplanting. Read more for a successful harvest!
Use Johnny's Radicchio Planting Program to plan for a wide radicchio harvest season. Plant these Chioggia, Treviso, Castelfranco, and Sugarloaf types in sequence for a more uniform, predictable, high-quality yield of radicchio produce throughout the season.
Join former Trial Technician Steve Rodrigue in a review of a recent season extension trial, conducted here at Johnny's Research Farm in Central Maine. This review focuses on a number of chicory and spinach varieties available from Johnny's Selected Seeds.
Within a few days of harvest place these caps overtop frisée, escarole, and other chicory heads to blanch their hearts. Widely practiced in Europe, blanching chicories with caps keeps the sunlight off the plants, resulting a beautiful, yellow-white center that is less bitter, more tender to the tooth and sweet.
Here is the full presentation of our Baby Leaf Greens: 12 Picks for Market Growers webinar, followed by a Q&A session. The full video runs approximately 1 hour.