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Harvesting Belgian Endive Roots

November 22nd, 2016

I’ve been waiting for the weather to turn cold so I could harvest my Belgian endive roots. These are ‘Totem’ variety, the seeds were sourced from Johnny’s Seeds. I’ve tried growing endive roots for forcing for many years and something has always eaten the tops, or the seed was washed away in a spring rainstorm, or something else happened to them. That never stopped my from sowing seed every year, hoping I’d end up with large roots to force chicons for winter eating. The cold weather finally hit and the leaves wilted a bit in the cold.
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I became interested in doing this after reading Eliot Coleman’s book Four Season Harvest. He has a nice section on how to grow them and what to do with them in order to force them. Johnny’s also has a nice resource page on their website (which is not available right now because of their redesign, I’ll try to remember to post a link to it later). It’s pretty simple to force chicons. The first step is to cut the leaves off the plants leaving about an inch or two of stem, you want to be careful not to cut too close to the root so you don’t damage the crown. The chickens were super happy to gobble up all those leaves.
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Then carefully dig the roots, they’re like parsnips or large carrots. You only need 6-8 inches of root, they’re much longer than that but can be quite difficult to dig up in their entirety. Some of my snapped neatly right at the perfect length when I was digging them.
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There are several methods for treating the roots, I decided to follow the methods recommended by Johnny’s. I layered the roots into baskets, covered them with damp burlap, and put them in a cold room of my garage. They’ll stay there for 3 weeks or so, then I’ll start planting them in buckets of soilless potting mix.
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When I want to start growing chicons, I’ll put the buckets on my seedling heating mat the basement. The top of the bucket will be covered with a black plastic pot in order to ensure darkness. They like warm soil and cool air temperatures for producing chicons. I figured the heating mat would warm the soil in the buckets but the ambient air in the basement is the perfect temperature for them. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of my efforts. Here’s hoping I’m eating chicons in January!

Have you grown any new and interesting veg this year?

2 Comments to “Harvesting Belgian Endive Roots”
  1. Joan on November 22, 2016 at 9:57 am

    Is the root edible too, or just the top?

    Reply to Joan's comment

    • Susy on November 22, 2016 at 11:41 am

      I’m guessing just the top, once you grow the chicons they probably won’t be much left of the root anyways.

      Reply to Susy's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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