Vegetablesalad leafSome care needed

Chicory

Cichorium intybus

Three quite different crops from one species: red radicchio grown as a heading autumn salad, sugarloaf grown as a hardy winter lettuce, and witloof forced in the dark from lifted roots to produce chicons. The forcing type is one of the few genuinely worthwhile winter projects for a shed.

Position: Full sun or Partial shade
Water: low demand
Drainage: Free-draining
Grows to: 25–40 cm × 30 cm
Hardiness: H5
Harvest: September to February
Difficulty: Some care needed

August

Nothing to do

No sowing, planting, harvesting or pruning window falls in August.

Coming next month: harvest.

Chicory’s year

Resolved for United Kingdom (general). Every window is stored against a climate event rather than a date, so a late frost pocket runs later than the band shows. What else August calls for.

Activity	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Sow outdoors					May.	June.	July.
Harvest	January.	February.							September.	October.	November.	December.

Timing that travels

The band above resolves this plant's windows into months for one region. These are the windows themselves, stored against a climate event rather than a date — which is the form that survives being carried to a colder garden, a frost pocket, or next year.

Conditions it needs

Light: Full sun, Partial shade
Frost: Very hardy
Hardiness rating: H5 (RHS)
Grows best at: 10–20 °C
Germinates at: 10–25 °C
Soil: Loam, Sandy
Soil pH: 6–7.5
Drainage: Free-draining
Water needs: low
Drought: moderate tolerance
Waterlogging: poor tolerance
Heat: moderate tolerance
Wind and exposure: good tolerance

Where these figures come from

LightSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — position
Checked 2026-08-13
FrostSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — hardiness
Checked 2026-08-13
Hardiness ratingSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: RHS hardiness ratings
Checked 2026-08-13
Grows best atSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — temperature
Checked 2026-08-13
Germinates atSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Seed germination temperatures
Checked 2026-08-13
SoilSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — soil
Checked 2026-08-13
Soil pHSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Plant Finder — Missouri Botanical Garden: Cichorium intybus — culture
Checked 2026-08-13
DrainageSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — soil
Checked 2026-08-13
Water needsHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
DroughtHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
WaterloggingHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
HeatHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Wind and exposureHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13

On your soil

Computed by comparing this plant's recorded requirements against each soil's recorded characteristics. A recorded horticultural fact overrides the comparison where GrowingHQ holds one.

Soil	Verdict	Why
Heavy clay	Works, with one condition	Chicory will crop on heavy clay, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.
Sandy	Prefers this soil	Sandy suits Chicory as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Sandy soil is among the soils it is recorded as suiting.
Chalky and alkaline	Grows well here	Chicory grows perfectly well on chalky and alkaline without special measures, though it is not the soil it would choose.
Loam	Prefers this soil	Loam suits Chicory as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Loam is among the soils it is recorded as suiting. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering.
Silty	Prefers this soil	Silty suits Chicory as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering.
Peaty and acid	Works, with one condition	Chicory will crop on peaty and acid, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.
Shallow over rock	Prefers this soil	Shallow over rock suits Chicory as it stands: The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Loam is among the soils it is recorded as suiting.
Made ground and urban soil	Works, with one condition	Chicory will crop on made ground and urban soil, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.

Not sure which you have? Four hand tests will settle it.

Space and spacing

Mature height: 25–40 cm
Mature spread: 30 cm
Rooting depth: 45 cm
Spacing: 25–30 cm apart

Where these figures come from

Mature heightHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Mature spreadHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Rooting depthHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
SpacingSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — spacing
Checked 2026-08-13

Measured centre to centre. Plants set closer than this compete for light and water long before they look crowded, and the crowding cannot be undone once they are in.

Where and how you can grow it

Each way of growing is assessed separately, and “not assessed” is a real answer rather than a gap we have filled in with a guess.

Method	Suitability	What it needs
Cold frame	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Hydroponics	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic leafy greens Checked 2026-08-13
Greenhouse	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board — AHDB: Winter salad leaves under protection Checked 2026-08-13
Polytunnel	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board — AHDB: Winter salad leaves under protection Checked 2026-08-13
Open ground	Workable source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Traditional dug bed	Workable source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Raised bed	Workable source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Container	Workable source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13

Growing it

ThinningThin to 25–30 cm for heading types. Crowded chicory produces loose heads that never firm up, which is the usual disappointment with radicchio.
HarvestingFor witloof, lift the roots in late autumn, trim the leaves to about 3 cm, pot them in the dark and keep them at around 10–18 °C. The pale chicons are ready to cut in three to four weeks.

Where this guidance comes from

ThinningSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — care
Checked 2026-08-13
HarvestingSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — care
Checked 2026-08-13

Is it worth putting under cover?

Whether it will grow there is on the methods table above. This is whether the space is well spent, which is a different question and usually the one being asked.

Structure	What protection is worth	What decides it
Greenhouse	Extends the season source GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file. GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ Checked 2026-08-13	Winter light. Chicory is one of the few salads that keeps producing in low light, which makes it worth cover precisely when nothing else is.
Polytunnel	Extends the season source GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file. GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ Checked 2026-08-13	Winter light. This is the classic and best use of an unheated tunnel: a bed of chicory, mustards and lamb's lettuce cropping from November to March.

Growing it without soil

Nearly anything can be grown in a soilless system by somebody with enough equipment. The useful question is whether it is worth it, in which technique, and what goes wrong.

Well suited

An established soilless crop. Grown this way commercially or routinely by home growers, with predictable results.

source

Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic leafy greens

Checked 2026-08-13

Forcing chicons is a separate operation done to a lifted root in the dark, and it is not what a soilless system is doing here.

Techniques that suit it

Nutrient film (NFT)A shallow stream of solution runs over bare roots in a sloped channel. Cheap and productive for small fast crops; a pump failure kills a crop within hours because there is no reservoir at the roots.
Deep water cultureRoots hang in aerated solution. Very productive and very unforgiving of solution temperature — warm solution holds less oxygen and root disease follows.
Ebb and flowA bed of inert medium floods and drains on a timer. The medium holds moisture between floods, which makes it far more tolerant of interruption than NFT.

source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

Root space: Small for the leafy types.
Lighting: Needs supplementary light
pH band: 5.5–6.5

Where these figures come from

Root spaceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

LightingHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

pH bandSourced guidancehigh confidence

Outside roughly this band, individual nutrients become unavailable even when they are present in the solution — which is why a crop can starve in a full reservoir.

Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic solution management — pH

Checked 2026-08-13

What actually goes wrong

Warm solution. Above roughly 22 °C the water holds much less dissolved oxygen and root disease follows quickly, which is why summer is harder than winter in an indoor system.
source
Sourced guidancemoderate confidence
- Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Solution temperature and dissolved oxygen
Checked 2026-08-13

No nutrient recipes here

GrowingHQ records pH bands, which are measurable properties of nutrient availability, and deliberately records no EC or PPM targets and no mixing instructions. Published targets vary by cultivar, growth stage, water source and technique, and the figures that apply to your system are on the product you bought.

Harvesting

When it is readyHeading chicories are ready when the heart feels firm to a squeeze, from September onwards, and are sweeter after a frost or two. Forced chicory is a different crop: the roots are lifted in autumn, trimmed and brought into the dark, and the pale chicons are cut when they reach about 15 cm — which takes three to five weeks in the warm.
How to pick itCut heads through at the base with a knife. Cut chicons off the crown cleanly and the root will often produce a smaller second one.

Where the harvest guidance comes from

When it is readySourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Chicory — harvesting
Checked 2026-08-13
How to pick itHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13

What goes wrong

Problem	How often	Notes
Slugs and snails	common source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13

Sources for this page

Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board · GrowingHQ editorial synthesis · Plant Finder · Purdue Extension · Royal Horticultural Society

Each figure on this page carries its own citation, under the “where these figures come from” note in its section. Record last reviewed 2026-08-14.