Garden rocket.

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

Garden rocket is the annual species grown for fast production of a broad, comparatively mild peppery leaf. It is the rocket most often grown under protection for salad packs. Wild rocket is a different genus with a finer leaf and a stronger flavour, and specifications that say only rocket do not distinguish between them.

What the crop needs

The crop is short-cycle and fast, and it is cut young. Flavour intensity and leaf size both move with growing speed, so the climate that produces the fastest crop is not automatically the one that produces the leaf a buyer specified. Which of the two is being grown decides the growing system, and that decision comes before the house is laid out.

What the greenhouse has to do

Rocket is fast, and speed is the design case. The crop reaches saleable size quickly and passes out of it just as quickly, so the house turns many times a year and the value sits in how reliably each turn clears. Sowing, climate and harvest are planned as one batch, and the pack line has to be ready when the floor is.

Which rocket is being grown decides the rest. The annual species and wild rocket differ in leaf form, growth rate and flavour, and a pack specification naming only rocket does not settle it. The system follows from the answer — density, harvest method and whether the crop is cut once or cut and regrown all change with the plant, and all of them are laid into the building.

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