Arugula Seeds

Arugula Seeds for Planting: Peppery, Nutty, and Wild Varieties

Arugula is one of the fastest salad greens you can grow, with baby leaves ready to pick in about three weeks. Its bright, peppery bite livens up salads, sandwiches, pizzas, and pasta, and a few short rows will keep a household in greens for weeks. Our collection of arugula seeds covers the classic strap-leaf types, an oak-leaf variety with a milder, nutty flavor, and a dark green wild arugula. Growing arugula from seed costs only a few dollars per packet, and the plants thrive in cool weather when many other crops are just getting started.

Arugula Seeds for Sale: Astro, Esmee, Bellezia, Slow Bolt, and More

When you browse arugula seeds for sale, the main difference is flavor and leaf shape. Astro is a dependable, fast-growing standard, with long, lightly lobed leaves and a mildly spicy flavor, and it's a good choice for cut-and-come-again harvests. Esmee has deeply lobed, oak-shaped leaves in a very dark green, and its flavor is nutty rather than sharp. Bellezia is a wild arugula with serrated leaves and an upright habit that makes picking easy, and it's a little slower to reach full size than the others. Slow Bolt is bred to resist flowering, which gives you more time to pick tender leaves, and the plain Arugula and Arugula Greens packets offer the classic tangy, peppery taste at a good value.

Most of these varieties are open-pollinated, so you can let a few plants flower and save seed, and the flowers themselves are edible and pretty in salads.

Growing Arugula from Seed: Sow Early, Sow Often

Arugula is a cool-season crop, so sow seeds as soon as the soil can be worked in early spring, about a quarter inch deep, directly in the garden. Seeds sprout in four to eight days. Thin seedlings to four to six inches apart for full-size plants, or sow thickly in a band if you plan to cut baby greens. Plants do best in full sun to part shade with steady moisture. Because arugula matures so quickly, sow a new short row every two weeks to keep leaves coming, and sow again in late summer for a fall crop. The Seedtime planting calendar works out your spring and fall sowing dates from your frost dates, and the layout planner helps you tuck quick rows of arugula in between slower crops.

Buy Arugula Seeds with One Flat Shipping Rate

When you buy arugula seeds here, you can combine packets from different suppliers in one order and pay one flat shipping rate rather than a separate shipping charge for each supplier. Seedtime members also get discounts on seed packets, so if you're planning a full salad garden, compare Seedtime's plans to see what membership includes.