I love the taste of arugula. For me, it was truly love at first bite. It’s a leafy green, but with a much stronger taste than lettuce. So when I saw sylvetta seeds in a catalogue, and read that the taste was similar to arugula but even stronger, I knew it was something I had to try.
That year, sylvetta grew well from seed, albeit more slowly than arugula. The taste was wonderful, very much like the fiery spawn of arugula and a hot pepper. It produced a lot of tasty leaves through most of the summer. Eventually, yellow flowers formed, followed by seed pods, and the harvest was done. I was very pleased with my first attempt, and considered sylvetta to be a success.
The following spring, I noticed a lot of small plants growing in the vegetable garden, and thought they were just weeds. I was late getting the garden going, and didn’t pull them right away. Imagine my surprise when all of those so-called weeds turned out to be baby sylvetta plants. I started seeing sylvetta everywhere – in the lawn, at the side of the house, and even in the front of the house, growing between the cracks in the sidewalk. I have no idea how it got there, since I only grew it in the backyard.
It turns out that sylvetta can survive winters here (in my zone 6 garden), and it will also self-seed. That second summer, I had an enormous crop of sylvetta. I gave away more bags of leaves than I could count. Luckily, everyone loves it. Unfortunately, it is so strong tasting that you can’t eat a whole lot of it at once. Or I can’t, anyway, and I need to mix it with other greens. I love to swap lettuce for sylvetta in egg salad sandwiches – it adds a nice zing. When cooked, sylvetta loses its heat, so you can throw it into omelettes and stir fries with abandon. You can keep it in the fridge for up to a week after picking.
I strongly suggest you try growing sylvetta. I also strongly suggest you think carefully about where you plant it, since it is perennial. You may also want to only let a few of the seeds reach maturity, or else you could have a sylvetta explosion on your hands. Your friends will love you for it, though!
Sylvetta (also known as wild arugula; Diplotaxis tenufolia)
sowing style: direct seed
timing: 4 weeks before last frost
requirements: full sun to part shade
spacing: thin to 6-8″
height: 8″
yield: try to keep it to one plant per person