All plants

Endive & Escarole

Cichorium endivia

Asteraceae · sunflower family

Matures
60–90 days
Harvest
Over a period · Annual
Sun
4–8 hrs
Spacing
8–12 in
Botanical engraving of Endive & Escarole

Planting window

When to sow, by microclimate — foggier blocks run a different calendar than sunnier ones.

JanFebMarAprMayJun
Foggy◐●●◐◐
Sunny◐●●◐
JulAugSepOctNovDec
Foggy●●●◐◐
Sunny◐●●◐◐
Well-suitedMarginalNot suited

Sunlight

How well it does at each level of direct sun per day.

<2 hrsNot suited
2–4 hrsMarginal
4–6 hrsWell-suited
6–8 hrsWell-suited
8+ hrsMarginal
Well-suitedMarginalNot suited

Soil depth

Root room it needs — useful for sizing raised beds and containers.

6–10"Well-suited
10–15"Well-suited
15–18"Well-suited
18–24"Well-suited
Well-suitedMarginalNot suited

Spacing

Room each plant needs — along the row and between rows — for sizing beds.

In-row
8–12 in
Between rows
12–18 in

Growth habit

The shape it makes in the bed and how tall it gets — what tells you whether to give it a trellis, a stake, or just room.

Habit
Low mound
Mature height
0.5–2 ft

Low and self-supporting — no staking needed.

How to start it

Sow it where it grows, or raise it under cover and set it out — and how far ahead to start the seedlings if it's the latter.

Usually
Direct-sow
Start indoors
6 weeks ahead
Direct-sowWell-suited
TransplantWell-suited

Sown straight into the bed it will grow in.

Well-suitedMarginalNot suited

Getting started

How it goes in the ground — how deep to sow or set it, and the soil temperature it needs to wake up. The cold-soil floor is the real limiter for direct-sowing in a foggy SF spring.

Started from
From seed
Ideal soil temp
75°F
Sow depth
0.25 in
Time to emerge
5–7 days

Germinates between 35–85°F; happiest around 75°F.

30°F110°F
IdealWorkable

Pests & diseases

What tends to trouble this crop — what it is, what you'll see, and what to do about it, least-toxic first.

Cornell's endive guide names aphids as the pest of note. Snails and slugs are the practical SF problem on any low salad-green rosette. Curly frisée types hold water in their leaves and are more prone to leaf rots than broad-leaved escarole — keep heads dry, especially while blanching.

Pests2

Aphids
What it is
Aphids have soft pear-shaped bodies with long legs and antennae and may be green, yellow, brown, red, or black depending on the species and the plants they feed on. A few species appear waxy or woolly due to the secretion of a waxy white or gray substance over their body surface.
What you'll see
Low to moderate numbers of leaf-feeding aphids aren't usually damaging in gardens or on trees. However, large populations can turn leaves yellow and stunt shoots; aphids can also produce large quantities of a sticky exudate known as honeydew, which often turns black with the growth of a sooty mold fungus.
What to do
Before planting vegetables, check surrounding areas for sources of aphids and remove these sources. On the other hand, these aphid-infested weeds can sometimes provide an early source of aphid natural enemies.
Source
Snails and Slugs
What you'll see
Snails and slugs feed on a variety of living plants and on decaying plant matter. They create irregular holes with smooth edges on leaves and flowers by scraping with their rasp-like tongues.
What to do
It will not be possible to eliminate some shelters, such as low ledges on fences, the undersides of wooden decks, and water meter boxes, so make a regular practice of trapping and removing snails and slugs from these areas. The survivors congregate in the remaining shelters, where you can more easily locate and remove them.
Source

Sources

Every figure above is backed by these.

  • UC Master Gardeners, Contra Costa Countybacks plantingWindow · Vegetable Planting Guide for Coastal Regions, calibrated for Sunset Zone 17 (areas directly exposed to San Francisco and San Pablo Bay) — the closest SF fog-belt calendar available for this crop, since neither uc-mg-sanmateo-sf nor the Peirce charts carry an endive row. 'Endive/Escarole' entry: 'Start seeds Jan-Feb for planting out in Feb-March for early summer harvest' (backs the Feb-Mar yes and the Jan maybe) and 'July - August: Plant seedlings to mature in fall/winter' (backs the Jul-Aug yes).
  • UC Master Gardeners, Sonoma County (Endive & Radicchio)backs daysToMaturity, inRowSpacing, harvestStyle, plantingWindow · Feature Vegetables crop page: 'Sow seed late in August-September for harvest in late fall and winter allowing 60-90 days to maturity' — the 60-90 day range (wider than the planting-summary PDF's 60-80, and the more honest one for SF, whose cool short days run maturity long) and the Aug-Sep yes. Spacing: thin 'to 10-12 inches apart' — the 12-in top of the in-row range. Harvest: 'Harvest Escarole when 5 to 6-inches tall; cut above soil line for re-growth' — repeated cuts off one planting, so over-a-period rather than once.
  • UC Master Gardeners, Sonoma County (Planting Summary)backs plantingWindow, inRowSpacing, rowSpacing, lifecycle, harvestStyle, startMethod · Vegetable Planting Summary, 'Endive and Escarole' row: 8-10 in in-row spacing (the 8-in floor of the range), 12 in between rows, direct-sown, season 'C*' = cool-season and hardy to heavy frost (25-28F). Notes: 'Does poorly in hot weather. Overwinters well.' — the basis for the Jun no and the Oct-Nov maybe tail. Its Aug-Sept planting date is Sonoma-calibrated and inland-warm, so it corroborates the fall window but does not set it; the spring half comes from the Zone 17 coastal guide above. Habit annual (cool-season, cleared after harvest); harvest over-a-period per 'cut above soil line for regrowth'. Start method: Vegetable Planting Summary, Endive and Escarole row: method D (usually direct-sown).
  • Cornell University Home Gardeningbacks sunlight, germination, growthHabit, plantingDepth, inRowSpacing, rowSpacing, lifecycle, plantingWindow · Cornell Home Gardening endive (Cichorium endivia; 'Also known as escarole, frisee'). Sunlight: 'full sun / part shade — Partial shade beneficial in hot weather' (4-6 and 6-8 yes, 2-4 maybe, 8-plus maybe for a bolt-prone green). Germination: 'Germination temperature: 35 F to 85 F - 75 F is optimal'; 'Days to emergence: 5 to 7'. Growth habit: 'Height: 0.5 to 2 feet' (6-24 in), rosette-forming leafy green, no support — low-mound. Planting depth: 'Direct seed 1/4-inch deep'. Spacing: 'in rows 18 inches apart' (top of row range), 'Thin to 8 to 12 inches'. Lifecycle: 'Lifecycle: annual — Biennial grown as an annual'. Planting window: 'endive needs short days and cool temperatures' and 'To prevent plants from going to seed (bolting), keep them well-watered and shaded when temperatures are above 75 F' — the basis for the long-day early-summer no.
  • UC Master Gardeners, Santa Clara County (Containers)backs soilDepth · No endive row in the soil-depth-by-crop list; assigned to the shallow-rooted (6-9 in) category by parity with 'lettuces', which that category names. Unlike radicchio (Cichorium intybus), which sends down a deep taproot, C. endivia is grown as a fibrous-rooted annual salad green on the same rooting pattern as lettuce, so every band from 6-10 up is workable.
  • USDA GRIN Taxonomybacks botany · GRIN taxon 10542, Cichorium endivia L., family Asteraceae. This one species covers both crops in this entry — broad-leaved escarole and curly frisee endive are cultivar groups of it, which GRIN does not rank, so they share a botanical name here. Distinct from Cichorium intybus (GRIN 10543), the radicchio/chicory entry.
  • UC Master Gardeners, Santa Clara Countybacks startMethod · Start method: Planting chart: Belgian endive carries a Transplant row; From seed to transplant 6 weeks.