Why You Should Have Planted Arugula Yesterday

Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. My name's Nicole John C. Burke, and I'm the owner of Rooted Garden and gardenary Incorporated and author of the upcoming book Kitchen Garden Revival.

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I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen gardening.

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What's the vegetable that President Obama made popular and you should have planted yesterday? It's arugula. And today on the Grow youw Self podcast, you're gonna learn everything you never knew about this fantastic vegetable and why you should be growing it in your kitchen garden right now. Friends, this is not arugula podcast. No, it's special. So get ready, get set. We are going to learn all the things about the amazing leafy green called arugula, and you're going to discover why you gotta have some growing in your garden right now. Today's episode is brought to you by my kickstart, your Kitchen Garden Workshop. I recorded this workshop and did it live back at the beginning of the coronavirus quarantine, and it is still, still just as fantastic as it was back then. I re recorded it just recently and it is a great way to get your kitchen garden off to a fantastic kick start. So if you're running behind and your garden just isn't set up yet, this is the thing for you. So go check it out@gardenary.com Kickstart now let's kickstart our arugula garden. You ready? Here we go. All right, friends, we must start with a really bad vegetable garden pun. Are you ready? What do you call arugula that does not like to spend money? A frugal. I know, I know. That one is just really bad. But I like the Not Arugula podcast episode. What do you think about that? I saw some super cute coffee mugs. I think every kitchen gardener should own one. Said not arugula. Mom one said, not arugula, dad. You know, just all kinds of random stuff like that. So in case you are in the market for a brand new coffee mug, you could get one that says you're not arugula. Okay, enough from the puns. Today we're gonna talk about one of my favorite things to grow in the kitchen garden. Honestly, one of the first plants that I had so much success growing and that I discovered with all my CL gardens in Houston, Texas, that in some places of the country, maybe even the world, you can grow arugula year round. Houston, Texas, hint hint is one of those places. So today I want to tell you all about arugula. I'm going to tell you some crazy stories you've never heard. I am going to break it down for you what arugula is like, how you can grow it yourself, and tell you some stories even about President Obama that I didn't know. Maybe, you know, I'm not a big politics news kind of person. So it was fun to read. All right, here we go. Let's dive in to arugula and why you should have planted some yesterday. So arugula has been around, turns out for a super duper long time. Like we're talking, you know, like hundreds of years B.C. so supposedly the first mention that people can find is in the Bible, 2 Kings 4, 39. I tried to find the actual white translation, but of course all the Bible translations I found just called it herbs. But it says one of them went out into the fields to gather arugula and found a wild vine and picked as many of its gourds as his garment could hold. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were. So in case you want to find the word arugula in the Bible, see if you can find a version where they actually use the right word. In my version, they said herbs, but we all know that they mean arugula. So first time they saw it mentioned is in the Bible. So they, they're thinking that it was harvested as early as 6th century BC. That's kind of a long time ago. Then they say the stories I found is that they also found it, I guess a few hundred years later in a poem. So supposedly, and this maybe is a little PG rated, arugula is considered or been historically considered an aphrodisiac. So was mentioned and some Pliny the Elder, who was a respected soldier, lawyer and writer who did a fair amount of research on the effects and benefits of arugula. He was pretty sure that arugula was an anesthetizing. Anesthetizing, yes, that's how we say it. Anesthetizing agent. And was prized as an aphrodisiac, a claim that has echoed throughout the ages, even though there's surprisingly little proo. So, I don't know, it's kind of a funny mix here. We got it in the Bible, and we've got it as an aphrodisiac. So basically, arugula originated in the Mediterranean region as so many of our fantastic herbs do. Things like basil and rosemary and thyme and oregano. Arugula is right there with them. So I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm shopping from a plant list or even if I'm at a store, oftentimes I'll have arugula over right alongside with all of the woody herbs, so with rosemary and basil and the ones I just mentioned. So possibly it's because it stems back to their origin, I'm not sure. But it's always struck me as funny because to me, arugula is not an herb. It's a salad green. So who knows? Anyway, it started out in the Mediterranean, and then there is some history and markings that show that it was used in Rome, Ancient Rome, and in ancient Egypt. Egypt. This is when people really started believing in the aphrodisiac properties for the leaves and the seeds. So then it shows up in the Bible. It also shows up in Jewish texts such as the Mishnah and the Talmud, all the way back to the first through the fifth century A.D. then it says arugula was brought to America by British colonists early on. Supposedly the Puritans brought it over by seed or plant. But it wasn't until the 1990s, really, the late 1980s, 1990s, that arugula became popular in the United States. Now, it's funny to note that in some parts of the world, the leaves aren't the things that are harvested and used as much as the seeds. And that's definitely true. In India, in fact, the seeds are what's used to be pressed and produce an oil known as tiramira that's used for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. If you've ever grown arugula, smelled it, eaten it, tasted it, whatever, you know that it has a really nutty and kind of a peppery flavor and aroma to it. And so we'll talk about this in a second. But you'll find that that's one of the reasons why it's such a great plant to grow because its unique smell and oils and things really make it not as appetizing to a lot of the common garden pests that typically like to attack most of our salad greens. So arugula started a long time ago, obviously, and has kind of grown and waned in its popularity over the centuries. So they say as the plant kind of made its way up into Europe, it would come and go in popularity in countries like England or. Or Germany. But it was in Italy where the popularity of the green really stuck. So over the 19th and 20th centuries, Italians just ate this thing up. So they put it on their pasta and their pizzas and their Italian breads. Every amazing dish that Italians make. We all know we love them. I know I do. They had some little arugula right alongside, so pretty fun to know. So that's most of the history of arugula. So what about now? And what is this thing? And why am I telling you guys? You should have planted it yesterday. So I did come up find this really great article from Bon Appetit. I don't know where you're listening from. I grew up in the south, and I'm now in the Chicago area. And I have, like, especially around the, say, Instagram gardening community or the more gardeners I meet, I find that, say, the British gardeners that I know or the Australian gardeners I know tend to call this plant rocket, while, say, gardeners in the south or in the US That I've met call it arugula. And so I'm like, why? Is it the same plant or is it not? So this is a fun fact I found in a Bon Appetit article, basically that it all depended on the Italians. They're the ones who really adopted arugula and made it their thing as they migrated around the world. It depended on where those Italians moved and what they called basically the base root of the word. So for the Italians, that mostly came to the US Most of them came from the southern part of Italy, at least from what I could read. So they came from the southern part, and they brought their dialects with them. And so for them, they called the plant arukulu, I think A R, U, C U, L, U. So then when it got into the US we just kind of, you know, did a cognate and made it arugula. So we went from araucula. Arauculu. However you say that, if you're Italian, please give me a call and correct my pronunciation. And it's basically the Calabrese term that we adopted. But then In England and other parts of Europe, most of the Italians that made their way into those areas used the word ruschetta. R, U, C, H, e, T, T, a. So these were mostly northern Italians. So they came in and, as you can tell, the word ruschetta kind of. I hope I'm saying that right. They took this ch, turned it into a qu, and had, like a Frenchy feel to. So it was rulquitt, Q, U, e, T, T e. And then the Brits, you know, shortened it and just made it rocket. So if you hear people say rocket, and if you hear people say arugula in general, we're talking about the same awesome plant. It just depended on where the Italians came from. I think that's so fascinating, and I just want to say a huge thank you to Bon Appetit for taking the time to research that and tell us that. Amazing. Thanks. So, all right, so arugula rocket. Now we know why it's called, what it is. So how good is arugula for us, and should we grow it? Should we eat it? What do you think? I do think that arugula is such a good thing to start with in the garden. It's also a great thing to grow. Even if you've been gardening for a long time, if you've never tried growing arugula, I absolutely think it's worth its while. So there are so many nutrients inside of arugula. We're gonna talk about it as we do a little food fight between arugula and kale in just a little bit. But it's got some. Let's see, it's basically full of iron. It's got lots of magnesium, and it really doesn't have many sugars or carbs. So it's just good for you with really nothing bad along side of it. It's known as a great immune booster. You can basically use it in all kinds of different ways. Obviously, the Italians teach us to put it on, but you can also put it in soups, and you can braise it. You can eat it fresh. You can also make a great pesto with it. So lots of times, you know, we want to have a basil pesto, but there's really, you know, I think basil is just a little bit more like, testy kind of green. So arugula is one of those greens. Especially if you're in a place like with my Houston clients, where you've got arugula year round, you can always have a fresh pesto if you're using arugula. Arugula is also an alkaline food. So I don't know if you guys are into the PH level thing in your body, but if you are, arugula is one of those awesome alkaline foods that helps balance you out. Arugula is also one of those greens that will stay fresh longer. So I don't know if you've ever bought. Of course you've bought the spring mix from the grocery and then you've thrown it out. Yes. Raising your hand. I am. Arugula will not go bad nearly as quickly as those really soft, supple, little sweet leaves from your spring mix. Arugula is also in a very unique family, I think, for a soft lettuce green. So if you've read my book Kitchen Garden Revival, or you followed along with me, you're a Kitchen Garden Academy student, You know I love to talk about plant families. Well, a unique thing about arugula in terms of its it's this very soft, easy to pick, cut and come again salad green, which most of those are in the aster family, the Asteraceae family. That's where you'll find romaine and iceberg and buttercrunch and red lettuce, all the spring mix greens. However, arugula is actually in the brassica family. So the brassica family are all those dark leafy greens that are so good for you, like kale, broccoli, mustards, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, radishes, etc. But the unique thing about arugula is, so it's in that family, it's got all those great plant properties that are so good for you, but it's such a fast, easy, small grower. Whereas most of the brassicas are going to take up, say, a full square foot, at least in your kitchen garden, you could grow 9 to 12 to 15, however you want to do it. We'll talk about planting in a second. You could grow loads of arugula plants in that one square foot and you could be harvesting again and again and again from the very same spot. So because arugula is in the brassica family, I think it really sets it up as a unique salad green that you could grow that sets it apart from the other aster plant families, plant family plants. And that also means it's a cancer fighter. So most of those brassica plants are all known to be fantastic cancer fighters, like broccoli, like cauliflower, like kale. And guess what? Arugula is their cousin. So eating the arugula with its sulfur smell and the peppery kick is one of those things that also includes. I'm going to say this so wrong, but it's isothiocyanates, which is that good stuff that helps fight cancer. That's what the smart doctors tell us. So arugula is obviously so good for you. Such a unique member of the Brassica family. And. And so obviously you should be growing it like yesterday, right? So here's another reason why you should definitely be growing it. It's because in North America, arugula just isn't grown many places, which is so crazy. If you listen to the Grow youw Self podcast for a while, which I hope you have been if you haven't, welcome. I have two other episodes about greens. One is called the Surprising Story of Spinach and the other one is called Romaine Calm. I'll try to the links to those episodes in the show notes. And in those episodes I talk about where those greens are grown. And unfortunately, and as you could probably predict, arugula is grown basically in the same places. So almost all of our lettuce greens in the United States, about 98% are grown in two places, Salinas Valley, California and Yumas Valley, Arizona. What that means is, is pretty much all your arugula, wherever you live, unless you live in those two places, is on a truck and on a refrigerator shelf for most of its life. And that also means that it's just not going to taste nearly as good as it should as is possible if you were to grow your own or to purchase it from a local farm. So that's where most of the arugula is grown. And honestly, it's really taken off in the last 20 years. So 1980s, 1970s Arugula had been around here for a long time in the US but it really didn't take off in popularity until the late 1990s. So let's talk about some of the funny things that happened in relation to President Obama and why our country currently has an arugula shortage. Did you hear we have had an arugula shortage since January. So back when President Obama was running for president. So when he was pre President Obama, he was. He started a controversy controversy called Arugula Gate. Have you heard of this? I had not. I just don't follow politics. Close enough. But now I realize I totally should have. So he was speaking to a group of farmers in Idaho and he was. I mean, Iowa. Sorry, sorry, farmers in Idaho. He was talking to Iowa farmers because that's where they have the Iowa caucus. Right? That's the Most important place, I think, at the beginning. So he's talking about inflated costs of food and he refers to the inflated cost of arugula at Whole Foods. And this blank stare came across everybody's face in the middle of the speech. And basically he was trying to make a point about American grocery costs. But everyone just kind of made it into this huge ordeal and decided to make a big deal about him seeing arugula. And that's like a hoity toity kind of vegetable. And there was not even a Whole Foods in Iowa. Anyway, it was a mess. And this great article in the Atlantic, which I absolutely recommend, talks about the fact that because of that arugula never quite recovered. That instead of arugula taking off, as it should have as such an amazing green to eat, kale took its place. So, you guys, if you've listened to my kale. Yeah. Podcast episode, which you gotta listen to, we'll put that one in there too then. You know, kale definitely took off over the last decade. And so this whole article is basically blaming this Iowa situation for arugula not being the one that took off instead of kale. We're going to do a little food fight here in a second between arugula and kale to see which one is better and should have won the race. So anyway, kale took over. It's America's top leaf. Everybody love kale. Everybody has a kale sweatshirt, including me. And so this whole article is basically talking about how, wait a second, arugula should have had its day and it just didn't get it. But it seems like maybe it was because of this article, I don't know. But arugula is definitely making. Making headlines over the last few years. So. In fact, in 2007, David Camp released the book the United States of Arugula. The sun Dried Cold pressed Dark roasted Extra Virgin Story of the American food Revolution. I guess right around the time President Obama gave his speech, this book was coming out and literally arugula is in the title. How funny is that? The whole book is basically based around our country's kind of resurgence of attention to these unique foods that we previously paid very little attention to. So things started to grow and take off and then you will not believe it, but at the beginning of 2020, it was reported that there is a nationwide shortage of arugula. In fact, it was all over the news. Very, very emergency matter in January that basically no one was going to be able to get their arugula fix in the winter. So this was mostly due to the fact that there was an unexpected cold and wet winter for growers in the Southwest. Now, this article basically doesn't shine the light on that. Well, it kind of does, but not specifically that. It's not the whole Southwest. It's literally the fact that arugula is just being grown in the deep winter in Arizona in this one area, the Eumus Valley, Arizona. So what had happened is they just had a very unseasonably cold and wet time. Usually they take over. So California is typically the main grower of arugula throughout the whole year. But in the heavy winter months like December, January, maybe February, the Arizona growers take over because that's where it stays warmer and drier when California dips a little bit. So it was during this time that things just got too wet, too cold in Arizona. And so there was like a downy mildew spread all over the arugula that was supposed to be on our grocery store shelves. So there are articles all over the news about the fact that restaurants and cafes and grocery stores were not going to have the arugula that they normally did. Super sad. So even one of the restaurants I read about said, when we didn't have it, we tried to find a replacement with baby kale, but it just wasn't the same. I hear you. So this brings up the point that I try to drive home here all the time on Grow Yourself. It's all the way back on episode number one, the three things that we can do that can change everything. Number one is to eat. Eat seasonally. Number two is to shop locally. And number three is to grow naturally. So it's things like this that really show the weaknesses in our food supply chain, especially in the United States. The fact that a plant that's so easy to grow and can be grown in many other parts of the United States is not. And so we are so dependent on just a few spots in our country to grow most of our food. So if something goes wrong, if there's a pest infestation, if there's bad weather, whatever, if something happens that kind of disrupts that one place that we're counting on, then boom, we have a shortage across the entire United States of a vegetable that we all should be eating more of because it's so good for us, it's so prolific, it can grow in such a small space. Space. And it just doesn't make sense. Right? I mean, if we did these three things, we would not have this problem. I loved reading this article written around the same time From Austin Texas Austin360 and they said, don't worry about the arugula shortage because we got our own. The article said home consumers can turn to the local farmers markets and farm stands where all kinds of wintergreens are available right now. Eden east farmer David Barrows said he has plenty of arugula at his East Austin farm stand, which takes place on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Boggy Creek Farm, whose farm stand is open Wednesday through Saturday mornings, also has arugula. This week, Johnson's Backyard Garden customers found arugula in their Community Supported Agriculture boxes this week. Isn't that awesome? So it says it's a good reminder the food supply chain is not always as reliable as we might think it is or should be. And that just because a product isn't available nationally doesn't mean it's not available from a local source. See, isn't that such a beautiful picture of what we should be doing? I loved finding this article and realizing that this is already happening. Just seeing the evidence of this goodness where when the typical supply chain that we're accustomed to fails us and then we're kind of forced to do the thing we should have been doing all along. And I've definitely found that to be true too. So one of the great things I discovered from growing in Houston, Texas over the five years of being in my own garden, but then also of being in so many clients gardens is that we could grow arugula there year round. So I was first introduced to the idea of growing arugula in a gardening class I was taking taking a salad gardening class. You guys know obviously I'm obsessed with growing salad. I'm currently, if you're not following along on Instagram, I'm currently doing a six months of Garden Salad challenge where I am going to eat a salad from my garden for six months like every day. So I'm on currently at the time of this recording, I'm like day 13 or something, which is pretty great. Anyway, I was in a class and and the guy teaching, Bob Randall, this amazing guy who is part of Urban Harvest, he was talking about how it's hard in Houston to grow greens for a good part of the year because it's actually too hot. It's kind of the opposite problem that I have here in Chicago now. But he recommended arugula as the start. He said right when you hit when temperatures start to come down from the 90s, try to seed some arugula and see what happens. It's usually the most heat tolerant vegetable or green. So I planted it that fall. It was like early, early September. I really tested my limits and sure enough I had a ton of arugula. So I grew it that whole fall into the winter. I think we had a light frost which did not seem to bother it in the least bit. Kept going, kept seeding it, growing more and more. And then that coming spring I had some clients where we put their garden in in May and even some in early June. And they were like, oh, I' so bummed I missed the salad garden season because I heard from you that it's just so good here. And I was like, let's just test something. And so you know arugula, you grow from seed. I'm going to teach you how to do that in just a second. And so it was, it's not an expensive trial, right? Like $3 for a bag of seed. So I just planted some seed as an under planting under bigger plants like tomatillos or tomatoes or peppers or pole beans. And just as a test. And sure enough guys, throughout entire summer, and we're talking high 90s, even reaching heat indexes over 100, we had fresh arugula coming out of our clients gardens. So I made it through that first summer and then it was just a thing. I just realized we could constantly have arugula all year long in a mild climate like Houston, Texas. Now that I'm in Chicago, I find that I can do it not quite year round. I could if I had a cold frame or a greenhouse. But even in my garden without having that, I can grow it under row cover for like two months on either side of frost dates. And then I can grow it out in the garden open throughout the entirety of the summer. So we're talking at least minimum eight months of arugula in my Chicago garden. Crazy, right? So I'm sure if you live somewhere colder like Chicago or somewhere warmer like Houston, you gotta realize now that you have to like you should have planted arugula yesterday. Obviously it's just such an easy plant to grow and I love that it takes up so little space and that you can grow it from seed, which means so much production from so little money and so little space. So let's get growing. Let's talk about how you can grow some arugula your self. So we talked a little bit about the seasons in general. If you see a seed package or look it up online, they're all going to tell you it grows in the cool season. That's because it's in the brassica family. So we just kind of generally put all the brassicas in the cool seasons. That's usually when the temps are above freezing, but, you know, hanging down below, say, 75 degrees Fahrenheit, that is the optimal growing time for that. But just like I told you, through these storage, I've proven that you really can grow arugula year round or even in hotter or colder conditions. But it does, you know, if we're going to go for optimal, that's what it is. So somewhere between, say, 40 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, I used to think now we found out that the word rocket comes from the Italian, but I thought it was called rocket because it's so fast, because that just, you know, makes sense, right? Of course they named the vegetable after we created rockets, right? Not the other way around. No, seriously. So, yeah, I do think if you do hear the word rocket, you should think fast because it is so fast. You can grow it for just the microgreens in just say 14 days. You can grow it for very small greens, probably within three to four weeks. And then if you want to grow it for say the full size plant, you can grow it to that size in about six weeks. That's fast. Like that's. We've been in quarantine longer than six weeks. In fact, I think I mentioned arugula as one of the vegetables you could grow during quarantine. I hope I did at least. So go back and you can listen to that episode as well to give you some fast growing plants. But arugula is definitely fast. Fast. That's why I'm going to call it Rocket. So I do recommend growing arugula from seed. I was just at the nursery recently looking for some woody herbs, and like I said, they had arugula right there alongside the herbs. And they were selling one plant, one arugula plant for like four bucks. And it already looked like it was going to bolt pretty soon. We'll talk about bolting in a second. But it was already kind of splayed out and it just didn't look good. And I was thinking why it makes me sad that they're trying to sell this for $4, when right inside the nursery, I could buy a package of probably 200 arugula seeds for 4 bucks. And it's such a better deal. So definitely I recommend don't start with a plant, start with seeds. You're going to find they're tiny seeds because they're in the brassica family, they have similar shapes. So they're wrapped tiny they're super tiny. So the hardest thing is separating the seeds to get them planted. If you want to grow them really tightly together and basically harvest when they're smaller leaves, then you could kind of scatter them out by hand. But if you want to have each plant grow to its full maturity, you really want to space each teeny, tiny seed about 4 inches from 1 another. I like to plant them in what I call a stagger. So that's. I was a cheerleader, so, you know, I'm thinking of my staggered cheer squad. You know how when you look at a cheer squad and you can see every girl, even there's like two or three rows back? That's because they're staggered. So you want to plant your arugula like that. We're basically in between the two plants. You kind of stagger it, you know, at the diagonal so that you can fit more plants into your sprinkle space, which I think is amazing. So you can plant these seeds. I highly Recommend using my 103 blend that you'll find in Kitchen Garden Revival. It's a sandy loam mix, and I definitely recommend growing it with a high compost content. Arugula loves growing in compost. So start the seeds outdoors. You could probably start this. I mean, you're listening to this in May, but you can start arugula before your last frost date. Like I was telling you, I've grown it in all different kinds of temperatures in both my Chicago and Houston gardens. So you can plant it. You definitely want to keep it well watered, especially as it's starting to grow. And then I really enjoy harvesting arugula when it's smaller. I find that the larger the leaves get, the less I want to eat them. My one saving grace for large arugula leaves is. Is to like. Is it called braising? I think that's called braising. You guys know I'm not a fancy cook, but basically I just take the arugula leaves, rinse them off, and then put a little tiny bit of, say, grapeseed oil and balsamic vinegar in a saucepan and throw them in there and wilt them. That's what I do. I just basically wilt them. So we're talking like two seconds. I mean, it's hardly anything with the greens. And then you take them out and. And you can serve them plain or put them on top of pasta. I just think they're so good that way. So I think they're called wilted, but maybe they're called braised. I don't know, but use balsamic vinegar and you can thank me later. It's so tasty. And to me, really makes the most of those leaves when they're not tasting, when they're a little too. Sometimes when they're big, to me, I just can't get them down because they're too bitter. You know what I'm saying? I think you know what I'm saying. Saying. Okay, so those are some tips on growing arugula. Basically, you want to keep harvesting, and it's always a great idea to keep planting. So you could literally, if you haven't heard of succession planting, the idea is every one to two weeks you head outside and plant some more seed. That way you get this continuous harvest of the green. And especially since I know I prefer the smaller greens, then it's just. It's nice to be able to get them when they are smaller. And the way you keep doing that is by continuing to plant more arugula forever, guys. Right? Okay, so let's finish up here with a little food fight. What do you say? We're gonna have a food fight between arugula and kale. So we talked about how arugula is super popular. So now let's talk about whether or not you should eat kale or you should eat arugula or maybe you should eat both. So I found this great arugula. I found this new website, I'm so excited about it, where it puts two foods together against each other. So here are some reasons why arugula is better than kale when it comes to water. We're talking about 100 grams here. When it comes to water, arugula has 5% more water content per 100 grams of arugula. So you're going to get some more water when you have arugula than when you're having kale. But if it's protein you're looking for, you're going to get 8% more protein from kale. So if you want water, go for arugula, and if you want protein, go for kale. If you're looking for folate, so that's that, like, thing. I think it's really good for women. Folic acid, something like that. I don't think you can have folic acid, but you. Anyway, you need folate. So three times more folate, guys in arugula than in kale. Did you know that? That's pretty impressive. I think so. And also 27% more zinc. So if you want some folate or you want some zinc, then you need to go for some arugula. Now, if you want to get more fiber, I think you could probably already guess this one. One, you definitely need to have kale instead of arugula. I mean, who cannot taste the fiber when they have their kale, Am I right? There's also 30% more vitamin A when you have kale and 28% more calcium. Wow. So if you want calcium or if you want vitamin A, then you're going to need to go for the kale instead of the arutino. But let's see. That's really. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. So none of the other vitamins are bigger in the arugula. They're all actually bigger for a kale. So it's really just zinc and folate and water. Those are the things that make it worthwhile to have more arugula. Now, there's more to the story here, and I'd like to say to me, one of the things that's so great about growing arugula is it's just easy and it's small. So if you've got a smaller space or if you're looking for an under planting for your summer plants, so let's say you've got tomatoes or peppers or pole beans or just some big things and you want to use my intensive planting the way I describe planting in Kitchen Garden Revival or in my kitchen Garden Academy, then I think arugula is just a great addition. So something like kale is going to take up a ton of space. If you let it grow to its full maturity, it's going to need a full square foot. I mean, if you've seen the kale in some of my gardens, you know, those girls can get to be like 2 or 3ft tall. So it's not going to work as an under planting, but arugula absolutely does. So it's this great filler where if you've got a little bit of extra space somewhere in your kitchen garden and, and it's just soil that's sitting there baking under the sun and needing to be watered and providing a space for a weed to grow, why not grow arugula there instead? So this is why in this case, for sure, I think kale is the winner in terms of vitamins and good stuff for your body. But I think arugula is a winner if you're looking for just something easy and small and prolific to grow inside your kitchen garden. This is the reason, guys, why I think you should have planted arugula yesterday. All right? So I think that about wraps up our episode all about the fantastic arugula plant. We will have tons of resources to help you get growing and lots of inspiring photos that I'm going to share from my own arugula harvest over the years over on the gardenary.com blog post today. So be sure to go check it out@gardenary.com blog and we'll give you the links to some of these great articles so you can dig in and grow yourself a little bit more. I hope you feel inspired to eat more arugula, to buy arugula from your local farmers and your local farmer's markets, and maybe even sign up for a CSA in your community. And I hope you feel inspired to fill up on the good stuff. Arugula is super good for you and you can eat a ton of it, especially if you're just eating something small like a little arugula microgreens. So fill yourself up on the good stuff and take care of yourself, okay? Thank you so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. I cannot wait to hang out with you right here next week where I'm gonna tell you an inspiring story and get you growing in a whole new way. I'll see you. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. I love hanging out with you every week right here and I just can't tell you how much it means to me. I want to remind you to go and leave a review on the podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. Elizabeth from Houston left the most kind review I think last week. She said that some gardening podcasts just make her feel bored or go on and on, but that this podcast is different. So I just want to thank you Elizabeth so much for your kind review and if you guys please leave a review for me, subscribe and take a screenshot. I would love to see your words and see you listening to Grow youw Self. Don't forget that today's episode is brought to you by my Kickstart workshop. If you have not gotten your garden started yet, you got gotta do. So guys, this is the year to have a victory kitchen garden. So go learn about my workshop@gardenary.com Kickstart It's a simple way to get going. It's like a one hour workshop and I know it's going to help you make your kitchen garden dreams come true in 2020. Thank you again so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast and I'll see you here next week. Sam.