Just as endive livens up that so-so salad on your plate, growing endive adds some oomph to your garden beds, too. With so many different varieties available, endive provides visual interest with its unusual textures and color combinations. Once harvested, endive also adds complexity when mixed with leafy greens in salads or when used to lend its slightly bitter flavor profile to sautéed vegetables, soups, or stews. In this article you’ll learn everything you need to know to grow a bumper crop of endive in your garden.

Meet endive

To properly get to know endive, it helps to first consider the chicory plant which is in the Asteraceae family. You may have seen wild chicory with its daisy-like blue flowers growing along roadsides and scrubby patches. Over the years, growers have also domesticated chicory. These cultivated kinds of chicory include variations on Cichorium intybus and Cichorium endivia:

• “Puntarelle” or asparagus chicory—Common in Italy, this bitter green Cichorium intybus variant is grown for its leaves and stalks.
• “Magdeburgh” chicory—Another Cichorium intybus type, this one is grown for its large roots which are typically dried and ground into a coffee substitute.
• “Witloof” chicory—Literally translating to “white-leaf” chicory, Witloof chicory is also (confusingly!) known as Belgian endive, but it is not a true endive. Another large-rooted veggie, this Cichorium intybus variant is commonly dug up and then subsequently forced to grow miniature heads of creamy white, romaine-like lettuce via a process that’s lengthy and somewhat complicated.

There is another domesticated chicory group which features a range of leafy, lettuce-like plants, and endive is included here. Within this Cichorium endivia group you’ll find:

• Curly endive or frisee varieties—These have narrow, frilly leaves. A few curly varieties to try are Galia Frisée Curly, Green Ruffec Frisée, and Olesh Tres Fine.
• Broad leaf escarole varieties—Not quite as fancy as curly endive, broad leaf endives (or “escarole”) have larger, wider leaves and look more lettuce-like. These types also have a slightly less bitter taste than curly endives. A couple you might want to grow? Broadleaf Batavian endive and Cornetto di Bordeaux escarole.

(Also, radicchios like Palla Rossa Mavrik feature broad, red leaves and are characterized as a kind of endive as well; however, belong to the Cichorium intybus group.)

Why you should be growing endive

You may have heard that growing endive is tricky, but growing the Cichorium endivia varieties like curly endive and escarole isn’t much harder than growing cool-weather crops like lettuce or spinach. And there are plenty of reasons why you should be growing endive at home. Short on space? Endive is compact enough to work well in containers. Its attractive foliage also adds novelty to the landscape and to your plate. Depending on your climate, growing endive can be a great way to increase your access to fresh veggies in early spring, fall, and even winter. It’s even pretty enough to hold its own as a fancy garnish for gourmet dishes, but don’t leave it behind! Eating endive provides loads of nutrients, including folate, vitamins A, E, and K, and minerals like potassium. Finally, harvested endive keeps in the refrigerator for two to three weeks.

Where to grow endive 

When choosing the right spot for growing endive, keep in mind that it performs best in full sun and loamy, well-draining soils that are rich in organic matter. If need be, you can always amend your garden beds with finished compost before planting your endive.

Pro-tip: Have an area in which you’ve recently grown alliums like garlic or onions? Or a planting bed that’s very close to your current allium crops? Avoid planting endive plants here as some of the same insect pests that alliums attract are also drawn to endive.

When to plant endive

Early spring and early fall are the best times for growing endive in your home garden. This is because endive prefers cool weather. As for exactly when to plant? That depends on your specific climate zone and the varieties you’ve chosen. Still, as a general rule for spring plantings, start endive seeds indoors 5 to 6 weeks before your average last frost date. Transplant the seedlings into the garden 2 to 3 weeks before the frost date. Alternatively, you can direct sow seeds two to three weeks before that average last frost date.

If you’ll be growing endive in the fall, start your seeds indoors towards the end of summer, so that your endive seedlings will be ready to transplant by the time temperatures begin to cool. Allow 3 to 4 weeks of indoor growth before you harden off the plants and move them outdoors. 

Starting endive seeds – indoors or out

Soil temperatures can greatly affect the germination rate of your endive seeds. Ideally, your growing medium or the soil in your outdoor garden beds should be between 60 and 70 degrees F (15.5 to 21 degrees C.) In fact, if your seeds are exposed to temperatures that are much higher than that, they may fail to sprout.

Endive seeds are tiny, so it’s easy to plant more than you intended. Whether you’re sprinkling them directly in the garden, in pots, or indoors in seed-starting trays, sow the seeds at a depth of about an eighth of an inch. Keep the seed bed moist but not waterlogged. Your seedlings should emerge in a week or two at the most.

When it’s time to transplant seedlings—or to thin your direct-sown plants—allow four or five inches between plants for cut-and-come-again harvests. Prefer to harvest heads of fully matured endive instead? In that case, space plants 10 to 12 inches apart.

Caring for endive plants

• Weed control—For best results, carefully pull weeds before they have the chance to outcompete your endive or escarole plants. Mulching around properly spaced or thinned seedlings can further help to suppress weed growth.
• Water—Your plants need about an inch of water each week. Avoid getting water on endive or escarole plant leaves. This reduces the potential spread of fungal disease which can cause your crop to rot. Instead, direct water to plant roots at the soil level. I use a long-handled watering wand for this task.
• Extra protection—Although endive prefers full sun, it can handle part sun/partial shade—especially when temperatures really start to warm up. Exposure to hot weather can cause your plants to give up and go to seed. Covering them with shade cloth may help to cool things off and net you a few extra harvests. I bend lengths of 9 gauge wire into hoops to float the shade cloth over the garden bed.

Growing endive: When and how to harvest

As with most lettuces, you can use the cut-and-come-again method or you can remove entire heads of mature endive or escarole. For cut-and-come again harvesting, snip a few leaves from each plant and the plants keep growing in between harvests. (If you prefer tender, young greens, begin harvesting as soon as your plants’ leaves are four inches long.)

When removing a whole head at once, on the other hand, wait for the plant to fully develop and then use a sharp knife to separate it from its root base at ground level. Now, if you plan to blanch your endive, this may affect the timing of your harvests. 

Just what is blanching? By shading the center rosette of an endive plant for a couple of weeks, you can mitigate its overall bitterness. This process is called blanching, and there are a couple of ways to do it. Some gardeners gather up the leaves around the perimeter of the plant and gently rubber-band them together. This means light can’t reach the now-shaded interior leaves. Others achieve the same effect by inverting a small bucket over the center of the plant. 

Besides offering a milder flavor, blanched endive is more tender. That said, blanching does diminish its nutritional value a little. Incidentally, some varieties like Cornetto di Bordeaux escarole are considered self-blanching. These have a tighter, more vertical growth habit which naturally shades their center rosettes. 

Pro-tip: If you don’t happen to have one of the self-blanching types, you should begin blanching your plants a couple of weeks before they’re set to fully mature. Also, before you block off your plants’ interiors, make sure they’re completely dry. Otherwise, you may be inviting fungal disease to take hold.

Extra tips for growing endive

When it comes to garden pests, endive and escarole can attract some of the usual suspects. This is particularly an issue when plants are still very young and tender. Here are a few troublemakers to watch out for while growing endive:

• Slugs and snails—Although they’re less likely to go after the tougher and more bitter outer leaves of established plants, these munching mollusks can make quick work of endive seedlings as well as any milder-tasting, blanched rosettes. You can hand-pick and remove any slugs or snails you happen to see, but they’re mostly active at night. For really problematic infestations, you can set a few beer traps nearby. Applying diatomaceous earth around your plants can also help.
• Aphids—Like slugs and snails, aphids are also drawn to the most succulent and mild-tasting young leaves. Regularly check the undersides of leaves as well as the middle of rosettes and remove any aphids you find. Should their numbers get away from you, you can knock them back with an organic insecticidal soap. However, bear in mind that these solutions also affect beneficial insects.

Fancy plants

Related to wild chicory, curly endive or frisée and broad leaf escarole fall within the Cichorium endivia group of domesticated chicories. And unlike Belgian endive (Cichorium intybus) which can be a bit fussy to produce, the leafy, lettuce-like endives are fairly easy to grow. You can start these cool-weather crops indoors for early spring and fall harvests or direct sow seeds in a sunny, well-draining bed or container garden.

When growing endive for yourself, you have a great degree of control over the taste and tenderness of these zippy gourmet greens. In addition to the varieties you choose, whether or not you blanch your plants and when and how you harvest them all factor in. Want to dial up the bitterness? Skip blanching and harvest the most mature leaves. Want to dial it down? Choose self-blanching varieties, blanch plants yourself, or keep up with cut-and-come-and-again harvests of young leaves. Provided you stay on top of weeding, watering, and pest control, endive dazzles in the garden and the kitchen.

For more information on growing gourmet greens, be sure to read these articles:

• All about growing mustard greens
• Learn how to plant and grow romaine lettuce
• No space? Grow spinach in pots – Here’s how
• A guide to growing arugula