Salad leaf
How to grow endive
Cichorium endivia
Endive is grown like lettuce but stands heat and cold better. Sow little and often from April to August in fertile, moisture-holding soil, using curled types for summer and broad-leaved escarole for autumn and early winter. Two things decide the flavour: steady watering, and blanching the heart under a cover for about ten days before cutting, which takes out most of the bitterness.
- Hardiness
- Hardy, autumn crops stand into winter with cover
- Position
- Sun, with light shade in summer
- Soil
- Fertile, moisture-retentive
- Ideal pH
- 6.0 to 7.0
- Water
- Moderate, keep even to limit bitterness
- Feeding
- Moderate feeder
Sowing and planting endive
WhenSow Apr to Aug; harvest Jul to Dec; blanch 10 days before cutting
Starting off
Direct or in modules every 3 to 4 weeks from April to August, germinating in 7 to 14 days at 15 to 22 °C; curled types such as 'Pancalieri' suit summer, broad-leaved 'Cornet de Bordeaux' for the hardy autumn to winter crop. Transplant modules at 3 to 4 weeks. Early sowings bolt in cold, so fleece April sowings or wait until May.
Spacing and planting
Sow 1 cm deep in drills 30 to 38 cm apart and thin to 25 to 30 cm for full heads of curled or broad-leaved types, or 15 cm for small heads to blanch whole. A single plant fills a 25 cm pot; a 20 cm deep trough suits baby-leaf sowings.
Varieties worth growing
- Pancalieri
- Curled (frisée) type with a dense, partly self-blanching heart. The one for summer sowings.
- Wallonne
- Large frisée with a tight heart that stands cold and damp better than most curled types, for cutting into autumn.
- Cornet de Bordeaux
- Old broad-leaved escarole with upright, wrapped leaves. The hardiest choice for a July or August sowing to stand under cloches.
- Natacha
- Broad-leaved escarole that is slow to bolt and makes a big, well-filled head. A good main autumn crop.
Endive month by month
Timings are for central England. Allow two weeks later in the north and on cold, heavy soil.
- January
Cut the last broad-leaved heads from under cloches.
- February
Nothing to do. Order seed of one curled and one broad-leaved variety.
- March
Prepare the bed: rake in base feed where you will sow next month.
- April
First sowing in modules or under fleece. Cold nights make early sowings bolt, so keep them covered.
- May
Sow curled types direct. Plant out April modules at 25 to 30 cm.
- June
Sow again. Thin direct-sown rows and water twice a week in dry spells.
- July
Sow broad-leaved types for autumn. Start blanching and cutting the first curled heads.
- August
Last sowing, broad-leaved only, by mid August. Blanch a few plants at a time.
- September
Plant out the last modules. Cut summer sowings. Feed half-grown autumn plants once.
- October
Cover standing plants with cloches. Blanching now takes nearer three weeks than ten days.
- November
Cut broad-leaved heads under cloches. Ventilate on mild days.
- December
Cut as needed. Clear any rotting leaves.
Feeding endive
A moderate feeder: a base dressing before sowing and one dry top-dress at the half-grown stage. Even watering matters more than extra feed.
A moderate balanced feed for tender leaves.
Feeding plan
A week before sowing or planting
Fruit & Vegetable Fertiliser 4-5-6
70 g/m² raked into the top few centimetres. With rows 35 cm apart that is about 25 g per metre of row (70 × 0.35). Use up to 110 g/m² only on thin, sandy soil.
Half-grown, about 6 weeks after sowing, once
Fruit & Vegetable Fertiliser 4-5-6
50 g/m², the low end of the label, scattered between the rows, kept off the leaves and watered in: about 18 g per metre of row (50 × 0.35). That makes 120 g/m² for the season. Skip it where the base dressing was 110 g/m², because 110 + 50 would pass the label limit of 150 g/m².
Pots, at sowing or planting
Fruit & Vegetable Fertiliser 4-5-6
5 g per litre of compost: 40 g mixed into a 25 cm pot of about 8 litres.
Autumn and winter crops from October
Nothing
Do not feed plants standing into winter. Soft growth is the first to rot under a cloche.
Signs to watch
Brown, scorched inner leaf margins
Tipburn from fast growth and erratic water, not soil calcium
Water evenly and avoid heavy nitrogen
Bolting in early summer
Cold nights after an April sowing or dry roots, not nutrition
Sow in May to July
Pale, slow plants at half size
Nitrogen short
One light top-dress of the dry feed in the feeding plan, watered in
Pests, diseases and problems
Seedlings eaten off, holes and slime in the heart of maturing plants
Slugs and snails, which shelter inside the head and under blanching covers
Raise plants in modules so they go out at a size that survives grazing. Check under plates and pots every couple of days while blanching, and use nematodes on warm, moist soil from April to September.
Heart turns brown and slimy under the blanching cover
Leaves were wet when covered, so the heart rotted instead of blanching
Only cover plants when the leaves are dry, blanch a few at a time, and cut them as soon as the centre is pale. In autumn use an upturned pot with the hole blocked rather than a plate, so air can still move.
Clusters of greenfly in the heart and on the underside of leaves
Lettuce aphids, mainly from late spring to midsummer
Squash small colonies or wash them out with a firm jet of water. Grow summer crops under fine insect mesh if aphids are a problem every year.
Grey fluffy mould at the base of plants under cloches in autumn and winter
Grey mould (botrytis) in cold, damp, still air
Leave cloche ends open except in hard frost, remove yellow lower leaves, water only in the morning and only when the soil is dry, and give winter plants the full 30 cm spacing.
Leaves tough and harshly bitter even after blanching
Plants checked by drought or heat, or left too long before cutting
Water thoroughly twice a week in dry weather, give summer sowings light shade from a taller crop, and cut heads at 12 to 14 weeks rather than letting them stand.
Harvest and rotation
Harvest and storage
Cut whole heads 12 to 14 weeks from sowing, or pick outer leaves and let the centre continue; blanch 10 days before cutting by placing an upturned plate over a dry plant for a creamy, mild heart. Cut at the base. A 1 m row yields 3 to 4 heads of 500 g. Use within a week; blanched heads rot fast once wet.
Rotation and companions
Rotation: daisy family (Asteraceae) with lettuce and chicory, 3-year gap, often grouped with the salads as a catch crop. Sow after early potatoes, garlic or broad beans are cleared in July.
Good to knowBlanch the heart by covering it for about ten days before cutting, to take the edge off the bitterness.
Growing endive in pots
One endive fills a 25 cm pot of about 8 litres, and a 20 cm deep trough grows a row of small heads at 15 cm apart or a band of baby leaves. Use peat-free multipurpose compost with the base feed mixed in. Pots dry out quickly in July and August, and one dry spell is enough to make the leaves bitter, so water daily in warm weather and stand the pot where it gets shade after midday. Blanching is easy in a pot: tie the dry leaves together loosely with string, or cover the whole plant with a bucket for ten days.
Endive: common questions
How do you blanch endive?
Cover the centre of a dry, nearly full-grown plant to shut out the light for about ten days in summer, or up to three weeks in cool autumn weather. An upturned dinner plate works for flat curled types and an upturned pot with the hole blocked suits upright broad-leaved types. Blanch only as many as you will eat that week, because blanched heads do not keep.
What is the difference between endive, frisée and escarole?
Frisée and escarole are the two types of endive. Frisée is the curled, finely cut type grown mainly for summer, and escarole (also sold as Batavian endive) is the broad-leaved type, which is hardier and better for autumn and winter.
Will endive survive frost?
Broad-leaved endive survives light frost and will stand into December or January under a cloche or in a cold greenhouse. Curled types are less hardy and rot in cold, wet weather, so cut those by late October.
Sources
Growing information on this page was checked against these references in November 2026. Feeding rates are Dr Forest label rates.