Madeline Breeze

most of the seeds are dropping now and they start coming up again at end of summer or whenever you get your first rain.

i planted rocket arugula - probably one or two packets - a few years ago. now it's everywhere.  i haven't tried any other varieties.  the flowers are white and cream colored.

i wanted to update this because now that it's end of april and im trying to cut the arugula back i realize i have way too much of it.  and after you trim it, it grows back immediately and goes to flower.  it gets completely out of hand and is probably invasive.  next year when it sprouts everwhere i'm going to try to trim it down regularly and make pestos from it.    it's hard to not let it flower because it's so beautiful in february and march and the bees love it, but i must not let it go to seed.   it is completely unmanageable!   that being said, there are worse problems.  like all these locusts...

we get about 5 inches of rain.  i suppose the last two winters have been fairly wet.  
on east side of house they get afternoon shade and indirectly get some irrigation from other plants, they do grow faster and fuller.  on the west side of my property the arugula gets afternoon sun and no supplemental water at all. they  grew more slowly but are still probably 3 feet tall and have filled out nicely.

I'm in the high desert/ southeastern Sierra region of Southern California.  my ground is sandy but has caliche hard pan and drainage is poor in some areas.  i have mulched my yard with woodchips from a local arborist and have been planting trees and a small garden which are slowly evolving over the last few years

I've been growing arugula the last few winters.  It did so well i threw the seeds anywhere that nothing else will grow.  It grows everywhere, starting small in late summer and growing through the winter up to 4 feet high, if you let it.  The flowers have a subtle light and sweet fragrance.  In February and March i have fields of white blooms covered in bees.  The hummingbirds also like it.  I pull out large bundles of arugula and feed it to my chickens.  

After it goes to seed but before the seed pods dry and spread, I chop and drop it to other areas of the property for the next winter where I have trouble growing anything .  The worms come where I have arugula growing and will eat the roots of what is left behind.  It gets quite bitter so I eat it sparingly myself or find younger plants.  

Mostly i love to have the flowers in the garden through February and it acts as a natural mulch.  I find it surprising that more people aren't talking about arugula in dry climates.  Any thoughts?

Did you work on this?  Would love to hear how it's going.  I am quite a ways south in LA but interested in SoCal desert projects.

is that in Lancaster, CA?  your stove looks pretty cool, did it work well through our long winter?  hard to tell from your photos how much planting you have done but i see some trees and strawberries!  what has been your greatest success and challenge so far?  thanks for sharing!

any update on this post?   im in los angeles but would like to move to high desert or establish some sort of part time base to experiment with permaculture ideas.  socal deserts are rough - hard if you're not there all the time to prevent squatters and thieves grabbing your stuff.  anyone else have experience in this regard?  im somewhat new to the forum but maybe this has been discussed elsewhere.

any update on this?  did you plant in death valley?  im in SoCal and interested in greening our deserts