Growing Arugula: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Arugula is about as fast as salad greens get, direct-sown and ready to harvest in around 40 days, with a peppery bite that gets sharper as the weather warms.
Sowing it early, and keeping it coming
Direct-sow arugula seed as early as five weeks before your last frost; it’s cold-tolerant and one of the earliest greens you can get into the ground. At 9 plants per square foot, a single packet goes a long way, and because it matures so fast, succession sowing every couple of weeks keeps you in fresh leaves instead of one big flush that all bolts at once.
Bolting, and the beetles that riddle the leaves
Arugula that turns sharp or bitter has usually bolted from heat, like lettuce, it’s a cool-season crop that suffers once daytime temperatures climb. Flea beetles are arugula’s most common pest, riddling leaves with small holes; row cover from the day you sow heads this off.
A gap-filler that gets along with everything
Arugula grows well alongside carrots as a fast, non-competing interplant, and pairs naturally with lettuce as a cut-and-come-again salad green with similar light and water needs. See the full companion guide for arugula. Its speed and density make it a good gap-filler in the Garden Designer: sow it into whatever square is empty for a few weeks between other plantings.
Companion planting guide for Arugula · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 0.5-1.5 ft
Method: Direct sow: Direct-sow outside. It doesn't transplant well, or doesn't need the extra time indoors.
When to plant arugula, by zone
Every zone arugula grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Not usually | Apr 15–Apr 22 | May 25–Jun 1 |
| 3a & 3b | Not usually | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 4–Jun 11 |
| 4a & 4b | Not usually | Apr 10–Apr 17 | May 20–May 27 |
| 5a & 5b | Not usually | Apr 5–Apr 12 | May 15–May 22 |
| 6a & 6b | Not usually | Mar 21–Mar 28 | Apr 30–May 7 |
| 7a & 7b | Not usually | Mar 6–Mar 13 | Apr 15–Apr 22 |
| 8a & 8b | Not usually | Feb 18–Feb 25 | Mar 30–Apr 6 |
| 9a & 9b | Not usually | Jan 11–Jan 18 | Feb 20–Feb 27 |
| 10a & 10b | Not usually | Dec 26–Jan 2 | Feb 4–Feb 11 |
| 11a & 11bFall window | Not usually | Oct–Mar | ~40 days after direct-sowing |
Harvest dates are about 40 days after the sow or plant-out date.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Arugula plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 9 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 0.5-1.5 ft.
Good companions for arugula
- Carrot: Fast-maturing, non-competing salad-garden interplant.
- Lettuce: Similar light/water needs; grown together as cut-and-come-again greens.
Full companion guide, including what to keep away from arugula →
Varieties worth considering
- Sylvetta: Cornell's Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners database describes Sylvetta (a different, wild species) as small-leaved, slow-growing, and slow to bolt, a good option if standard arugula bolts on you too fast in a warm spring. (source) Buy seeds: High Mowing Organic Seeds
- Astro: A wider, less-lobed leaf than standard arugula with a milder flavor while young and cool, slower to bolt, and heat tolerant once it does warm up. A reasonable middle ground between full-speed standard arugula and the slow, small-leaved Sylvetta above. (source) Buy seeds: Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market · High Mowing Organic Seeds
- Roquette: The standard, fast-growing salad type most seed racks sell as plain 'arugula', with dark green, wide, tongue-shaped leaves. The baseline this profile's other picks are chosen as alternatives to. (source) Buy seeds: True Leaf Market
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy arugula seeds
Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market · Burpee · High Mowing Organic Seeds (each supplier's arugula seeds)
The varieties we recommend above each have their own buy links, for the suppliers that sell that exact variety.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a clear consensus of positive, independent reviews, or ones we bought and use ourselves. Each item on our gear page says which.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing arugula" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Arugula: The fastest peppery green in a salad garden, ready in under six weeks but quick to bolt once the heat arrives.
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