Italian Dandelion, Heirloom Leaf Chicory Seeds

Bring a classic Italian bitter green to your kitchen garden. Italian Dandelion produces long, deeply cut green leaves with pale midribs and a savory, pleasantly bitter flavor. Pick small, tender leaves to add character to mixed salads, or let them grow for a pan of greens sautéed with garlic and olive oil.

Leaf Chicory, Not a Lawn Dandelion

Despite its familiar name, Italian Dandelion is Cichorium intybus, a non-heading leaf chicory, rather than true dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). Its upright, loose-leaf growth makes it useful for repeated picking. Plants allowed to flower develop pale blue blooms, not yellow dandelion flowers.

Why Grow Italian Dandelion?

• Distinctive leafy texture: Narrow, deeply lobed leaves bring a different shape to salad mixes and garden beds.
• Two kitchen harvests: Use young leaves fresh and larger leaves as cooked greens.
• Pick a little at a time: Harvest outer leaves while leaving the crown and young center growth intact for further picking when conditions permit.
• Cool-season flavor: Plan spring and fall sowings for tender greens; hot weather can intensify bitterness and encourage flowering.

Growing Notes

Direct sow about ¼ inch deep in prepared soil in spring or for a fall crop. Choose full sun to partial shade and rich, well-drained soil. Keep the seedbed evenly moist during germination, then water consistently as plants grow. Thin young plants rather than leaving crowded seedlings to compete.

Raised-Bed Spacing

For full-size plants in a square-foot bed, use 1 plant per sq ft. Give especially large plants more room if needed. Baby-leaf sowings can be closer together when harvested young. Keep picking regularly and avoid cutting into the central crown.

Harvest Details

• Packet size: 0.30 g, approximately 200+ seeds.
• Baby-leaf harvest: May begin around 20+ days from sowing under favorable conditions, following the supplier's estimate. Pick by leaf size and tenderness rather than the calendar alone.
• Larger greens: Allow additional growing time and harvest before leaves become tough or flower stalks develop.
• Flavor: Savory and pleasantly bitter; young leaves are usually the tenderest.
• Botanical name: Cichorium intybus.
• Type: Heirloom, open-pollinated leaf chicory.

Kitchen Uses

Mix a handful of young leaves with milder salad greens. Sauté larger leaves, stir them into soups or serve them as a side dish much like other cooking greens. Blanching before sautéing can soften their bitter edge.

Chicory roots are traditionally dried, roasted and ground as a coffee additive or substitute. This listing is primarily for leaf production, not a specialized root-chicory crop, so no fixed root-harvest date is promised.

Will It Return?

Italian Dandelion can persist as a perennial where conditions allow, but winter survival and useful leaf production vary with climate, drainage and management. It is often grown as a seasonal greens crop. Remove spent flower heads before seed dispersal if you do not want volunteers.

Packed and shipped by Box Garden Seeds LLC.