🌍 Built for UK, USA, Canada & Worldwide Gardens Free Growing Guides for Every Region Love It or Your Money Back Secure Checkout Instant PDF Download Checked Against RHS, USDA & Agri-Food Canada Data Free Garden Layout Planner
🌍 Built for UK, USA, Canada & Worldwide Gardens Free Growing Guides for Every Region Love It or Your Money Back Secure Checkout Instant PDF Download Checked Against RHS, USDA & Agri-Food Canada Data Free Garden Layout Planner
Move through the SoilCommander growing library like a course: keep the navigation in place, open the next lesson, and build your garden plan step by step.
In the UK, chicories are ready to harvest 30–60 days after planting.
Chicories (Cichorium intybus) — perennial.
Unlike an annual crop, the work here is front-loaded into establishment: get the planting and the site right and the same plants crop for several seasons.
Core growing advice on this page is checked against named horticultural and university-extension sources — see References.
Sow forcing types outdoors May-June, radicchio/sugarloaf indoors April-May or outdoors June-July, all at about 1cm depth in rows 30cm apart (RHS).
Thinning and leaf growth
1
Thin to 15cm apart for forcing types, 30cm for radicchio/sugarloaf, or 5cm for baby leaf crops; water thoroughly in dry weather to deter bolting and bitter leaves (RHS).
Heading (radicchio/sugarloaf) or root bulking (forcing types)
4
Radicchio and sugarloaf form heads through summer for a late-summer harvest; forcing chicory instead bulks up its root through summer ahead of winter lifting and forcing (RHS).
Harvest, or lifting and forcing
8
Radicchio/sugarloaf harvested as whole heads from late summer. Forcing chicory is dug up in November, roots stored and then forced in the dark at 10-15C, yielding pale chicons at 15cm tall after about 4 weeks, through winter into early spring (RHS).
When to pick: RHS: cut-and-come-again leaves ready "just a month or two after sowing"; forced chicons ready "about four weeks" after potting up, harvested "once the chicon is 15cm (6in) tall, by cutting it at the base"; mature whole heads ready from late summer to mid-autumn.
Storage
Forced chicons and cut leaves best used fresh, short storage life
6 independent sources are cited for this crop. Where they disagree - soil pH is the clearest case - every figure is preserved rather than averaged into false precision.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do chicories take to grow?
Typically 30–60 days, depending on cultivar and growing conditions.
What soil pH do chicories need?
A pH of about 6–7.5. That span reflects genuine variation between the authorities we cite rather than a single agreed figure — the References section lists each source's exact range.
What problems affect chicories?
Our data links 2 diseases and 3 pests to this crop. See the sections above for each one and how to manage it.
Plan next season before the problems start
This page gives you the thresholds; the planner turns them into your own calendar. It works from what you can observe and measure in your garden rather than from dates written for somebody else’s latitude.
Science-based growing guides · Thresholds that hold in any climate
This guide states the conditions the plant itself responds to — soil temperature, frost tolerance, day length — rather than dates, because the same calendar month means opposite seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres. Anything genuinely restricted to one part of the world is named as such rather than presented as universal. Written and maintained by our editorial team against international horticultural research and extension sources.
Sketch your exact plot shape, pick your crops, and get a spacing-accurate bed layout with companion pairings and a rotation plan. Spacing, companion pairings and rotation are the same in every climate and both hemispheres — pair the layout it gives you with when to plant to set your own timing from soil temperature.
