Garden Rocket - Eruca vesicaria Esmée

The cultivated rocket 'Esmée' is a small salad leaf selected for organic farming, prized for its peppery and slightly nutty flavour, without the marked bitterness of some rockets. Its leaves add a spicy kick to salads, mesclun mixes, and as a garnish for hot dishes. It can be harvested in just a few weeks and tolerates successional sowing well, including under cover to extend the season. 100% organic, non-hybrid, and reproducible seeds.

Botanically, the cultivar 'Esmee' belongs to the species Eruca vesicaria and the Sativa group, of the Brassicaceae family, just like cabbages, turnips, rapeseed, and mustard. It is commonly called cultivated rocket, common cultivated rocket, annual rocket or simply rocket. The species is a temperate climate annual, native to a vast area ranging from the Mediterranean basin to the Near East and Western and Central Asia, as far as Iran, India and Pakistan, and even China.
The cultivar 'Esmee', created by the Dutch seed company De Bolster as part of a fully organic breeding programme, is an open-pollinated, non-hybrid variety. Its seeds bear the bioverita label, which guarantees organic cultivation and reproducible seeds suitable for professionals and amateurs.

Cultivated rocket first forms a rosette of lobed leaves 10 to 20 cm long, with a broad terminal lobe and narrow, dentate lateral lobes. In 'Esmee', these leaves are particularly fine, very deeply cut, of a glossy dark green, and form a dense clump 15 cm high and 15 to 25 cm wide. The flowers, typical of the Brassicaceae, are creamy white to yellowish, veined with purple, gathered in loose terminal clusters. This flowering occurs mainly from late spring to summer. Pollination is carried out by insects. The plant dies after producing its seeds.

Rocket has been consumed since antiquity and the Romans considered it a heating plant, to the point that it was sometimes deemed too "stimulating" to be grown in monastery gardens.

In the kitchen: Rocket 'Esmée' is used mostly raw in salads, alone or in a mesclun mix, in sandwiches, burgers, bowls, and on open sandwiches (with fresh cheese, burrata, hummus…). It can be scattered over pizzas and focaccias straight from the oven, or added at the end of cooking to pasta, risotto, or an omelette. Blended with olive oil, dried fruit, and parmesan, it makes a very fragrant peppery pesto, perfect with tomatoes, goat's cheeses, grilled meats, and fish.

Cultivated Rocket is not demanding; it grows ideally in a humus-bearing, fresh, and well-draining soil but also does perfectly well in ordinary soils.

Harvest: It is advisable to stagger sowings to have a supply over a long period. It is simply cut off at ground level.

Storage: Rocket leaves keep for a few days in the refrigerator. To enjoy its full flavour, we recommend consuming it freshly picked.

The gardener's tip: Flea beetles, tiny beetles, are fond of Rocket leaves, which they meticulously puncture in dry, hot weather. While spraying with tansy manure can limit damage, installing an insect-proof mesh from sowing remains the most effective control method while avoiding the use of insecticidal sprays which, even of natural origin, are not without consequence for the garden's balance.