Chicory

Sowing: Chicory's long taproot makes it difficult to transplant without damage, so it is best sown directly into the garden, spacing plants roughly 12 inches to 3 feet apart. Seed can go in during early spring, several weeks before the last frost, or in late summer or early fall while there is still time for roots to establish before the ground freezes. Choose a sunny spot with rich, well-drained soil, though the plant tolerates a wide range of soil textures.

Growth: In its first season chicory forms only a rosette of toothed, dandelion-like leaves while it builds a deep taproot; flowering stems with smaller leaves appear only in the second year and continue blooming from midsummer into fall. Once established the plant is fairly drought tolerant, but it performs poorly in hot, humid summer conditions.

Chicory faces few serious pests or diseases, with slugs, snails, and cutworms noted as only occasional problems.

Leaves: Young leaves can be cut for salads while still mild, but they grow more bitter as the season progresses; older leaves are typically boiled, similar to spinach, to tame that bitterness. Flower buds can be eaten raw, and freshly opened flowers serve as an edible, if bitter, garnish.

Roots: The fleshy taproot can be boiled and eaten as a vegetable, or dried, roasted, and ground for use as a caffeine-free coffee substitute or additive.

Culinary: Chicory leaves are grown for use in salads or as a cooked green, its buds and flowers are eaten as garnishes, and its roasted, ground root has long served as a coffee substitute or blending ingredient, particularly in regions such as the southern United States.

Forage: The plant is also cultivated as a livestock forage crop, valued as feed for grazing animals.

Ornamental: With its extended run of blue blooms from summer to frost, chicory is grown as an attractive wildflower that draws bees, butterflies, and other pollinators to the garden.

Medicinal: Chicory's leaves, roots, and buds have historically been used in folk and ethnoveterinary remedies for various ailments in both people and livestock.

Chicory is native to Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, and it has been cultivated for centuries there for its edible leaves, buds, and roots. European colonists carried it to North America for food, animal feed, and folk medicine, and it subsequently spread and naturalized across much of the continent.