*This seed is offered as part of the "Gusto Italiano Project", a collaborative partnership between Uprising Seeds, Italian breeders Smarties.Bio, and the Culinary Breeding Network. Certified organic seed is grown in Italy by Smarties.Bio.
Variety: "Delta" Type: Variegato di Lusia Day to Maturity (slot): 90 (mid)
(Cichorium intybus) Radicchio Variegato di Lusia, named after the town which lies about halfway between Chioggia and Verona in Northern Italy's Veneto region, can be thought of as a mashup of Chioggia shape and Castelfranco color patterning. The attractive round heads are slightly less dense but feauture the same diffuse veining pattern as the well known Chioggia types with wine red flecking on leaves that are light green on the exterior fading to buttery yellow toward the core. The red flecking gets more and more pronounced towards the center. Like many of the pale to gold radicchi its bitterness is very mild and its texture most akin to lettuce family greens with a tender crisp crunch (think iceberg meets romaine for an after-dinner amaro). It's a beautiful addition to salads shredded raw and we'll always recommend grilled wedges for just about any of the radicchio types. An excellent choice to win people over to this family of bitter delights or to dip a toe in yourself.
About the named varieties... For most vegetables, in order to provide a continuous harvest over a long period of time, growers stagger planting dates throughout the season which in turn provides a continuous harvest as the plants mature to eating stage. With radicchio, a different strategy is employed. For the most part, the majority of heading radicchio is best suited to seeding around the summer solstice (transplanting in the second-third week of July). To achieve a longer harvest period, rather than staggering planting dates, breeders have developed different varieties within a type with different days-to-maturity harvests. These are often referred to as "slots" with many types having early, mid, and late slotted varieties.
