Radicchio ‘Pallo Rossa’

Credit: Carolyn Herriot

This vegetable makes a wonderful sight in the garden and the salad bowl in fall. Cool weather brings out the best in this hardy annual member of the chicory family because this is when the colour and flavour is best.

‘Pallo Rossa’ produced these glossy red and white heads in September from a spring planting. To harvest, I cut them off with a knife, leaving the roots and outer wrapper leaves in place to re-grow new heads. Radicchio happily grows in cool moist soils from a spring or a July seeding.