What should a rocket contract specify?

The plant. Contracts and pack specifications routinely say only rocket, but which rocket is being grown decides the density, the harvest method and the layout, so it belongs in the brief before the house is designed.

What matters commercially in greenhouse arugula?

Uniformity, shelf life and how reliably the house hits a packing schedule. The crop is short-cycle with quick turnover, so the value sits in how dependably each batch clears together rather than in total mass.

Arugula — DutchGreenhouses

Q: Are garden rocket and wild rocket the same crop?

No. Garden rocket is the annual of the two, grown for rapid production of a broader, milder leaf. Wild rocket is a different genus with a finer leaf and a stronger flavour, and it behaves differently in cultivation. The two are not interchangeable in either the greenhouse or the pack.

Arugula reaches the market as a young leaf in salad and mixed-leaf packs, where its pepperiness is the product. It is a short-cycle crop with quick turnover, and the commercial questions are uniformity, shelf life and how reliably a house can hit a packing schedule.

Two plants, one name

Two distinct plants are sold under the same name. Garden rocket is the annual of the two, grown for rapid production of a broader, milder leaf. Wild rocket is a different genus with a finer leaf and a stronger flavour, and it behaves differently in cultivation. Contracts and specifications routinely say only rocket, and the two are not interchangeable in either the greenhouse or the pack.

What these pages cover

These pages cover garden rocket grown under protection. Wild rocket, field production and cut-and-regrow systems are separate questions, and each changes the density, the harvest method and the layout enough that it belongs in the brief rather than being assumed.

DutchGreenhouses® designs the structure, climate, screening and irrigation around the leaf being grown and the pack it is destined for, rather than around a shared common name. Get in touch to discuss an arugula project.

Arugula

The varieties

Garden rocket / arugula

One of two plants sold under the same name, and the milder one.

Flavour that does not keep

Arugula is bought for its pepper. That bite comes from mustard compounds the plant builds in its leaves, and it is as much the product as the vitamin C and calcium the leaf also carries. The crop goes into salad and mixed-leaf packs and is almost never cooked, so nothing in it is protected by a pan.

Both the flavour and the vitamin content fade off the plant. Pungency softens, the leaf yellows at the edge, and the pack loses the character that put it in the mix. It happens quietly enough that a long chain can move the product for days without seeing a fault, while the leaf on the plate keeps getting blander.

Growing near the market shortens that fade to something a pack absorbs. A short-cycle leaf, turned many times a year and delivered within days of cutting, reaches the bowl tasting like the specification it was sold against. Grown far away, the same seed under the same climate recipe arrives as a milder leaf than the one that was ordered.