Radicchio Rossa Treviso Red Seeds

Grow crisp red-and-white radicchio for colourful salads and cooked dishes. Rossa Treviso Red brings the distinctive, pleasantly bitter flavour of leaf chicory to a cool-season vegetable garden.

Ready to grow your own colourful radicchio? Follow our step-by-step Radicchio Grow Guide for sowing, transplanting, regional timing and advice on harvesting young leaves or fuller heads.

Quick Grow Facts

• Crop: Rossa Treviso Red radicchio, a leafy Cichorium intybus chicory with elongated Treviso-type leaves and pale ribs. It is not Witloof forcing chicory.
• Sowing season: establish plants as heat eases and a cool growing window approaches; adjust for local frost and rainfall.
• Position: full sun in cool weather; protect young plants from harsh heat.
• Seed and sowing: sow about 5 mm deep in a fine, freely draining seedbed, or lightly cover seed in modules. Keep evenly moist, not waterlogged.
• Germination: aim for a moderate seed-zone temperature around 16–20°C. Heat above about 25°C can cause thermal dormancy; check moisture and temperature if emergence is slow.
• Transplanting: move healthy seedlings with several true leaves and a rooted plug after gradual hardening off. Keep the crown clear of soil.
• Spacing: give full plants about 30 × 30 cm. For a separate baby-leaf row, thin to roughly 5 cm and harvest young rather than expecting crowded plants to form heads.
• Growth form: leafy chicory that can become more upright and head-forming as cool weather develops; no staking or routine pinching is needed.
• Harvest: pick tender young leaves while leaving the centre to grow, or cut a developed, firm head before bolting or deterioration. Timing varies with conditions.

Why Grow This Variety

• Red foliage and contrasting pale ribs bring colour and crunch to the kitchen.
• Enjoy young leaves in mixed salads or fuller heads grilled, sautéed or added to pasta and risotto.
• Cool weather supports the red-leaf crop; younger or warmer-grown plants may remain greener and looser.

Growing Notes

• Use fertile, freely draining soil and keep growth steady with regular moisture.
• Water at soil level where possible, preserve airflow and protect young plants from slugs, snails and harsh weather.
• Pick outer leaves for a leaf crop, but do not cut out the centre of plants being grown for heads. Witloof-style root forcing is a different method.
• Wash harvested leaves with clean potable water, cool promptly and discard spoiled material.
• Planting seed is for sowing, not eating; use it for sprouts or microgreens only when its labelling expressly permits that use.

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