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Last edited on November 02, 2026. View history

Rocket

Eruca Sativa
Also known as Eruca (EN) Arugula (EN)

The mainstay of salads during spring and autumn, easy to grow and fast to the eating stage. Larger leaves are also tasty stir fried, and the nutty-tasting flowers can go in salads. Direct sow by sprinkling into prepared beds, covering while germinating to keep birds off. Repeated harvesting delays it going to seed.

4
plantings
1
harvest
3
seed packets
Growstuff is a free, community-run site for people who grow food. Keep track of what you plant and harvest, find seeds to swap, and see what is growing near you. Join to record your own rockets.

Rocket facts

Lifespan

Annual living and reproducing in a single year or less
7 weeks median lifespan
First harvest expected 11 weeks after planting
Last harvest expected 11 weeks after planting

Grown for

seed harvested 1 time
Optimal temperature 15–25 °C
Absolute temperature 8–29 °C
FAO EcoCrop
Optimal rainfall 500–900 mm/year
Absolute rainfall 300–1100 mm/year
FAO EcoCrop
Optimal soil pH 7–8
Absolute soil pH 6–8.5
FAO EcoCrop

Crop cycle

70–150 days
FAO EcoCrop

Optimal light

very bright to clear skies
FAO EcoCrop
What are growing degree days?

A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.

Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.

For rocket, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 8°C and a shortest growing cycle of 70 days at its best temperature, about 840 growing degree days to a first harvest.

Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your rocket will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.

How members grow rockets

Sunniness

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Planted from

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Harvested for

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Photos

Rocket plantings

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by shiny

Video

Where rockets grow

Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.

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Rocket harvests

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Time to harvest

If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 70 to 150 days.

From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.

Ecological requirements

Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Eruca sativa Miller

Family / Taxonomy Magnoliopsida
Dilleniidae
Capparales
Cruciferae
Life form herb
Life span annual
Habit erect, acaulescent (or rosette plants)
Optimal soil depth shallow (20-50 cm)
Optimal soil texture medium, light
Optimal soil fertility moderate
Optimal soil drainage well (dry spells)
Optimal soil salinity low (<4 dS/m)

Learn more about rockets

Resources outside Growstuff.