How to grow it: A dramatic winter plant coming on now is chicory, or as it is known in Italy, radicchio.
This vegetable does very well over the colder months, the chill giving it even more dramatic colouring.
Chicory 'Red Verona' is a gorgeous vegetable, with dark ruby-red leaves and striking white veins. It forms a compact head similar to an iceberg lettuce.
You can get loose-head chicory for leaf picking, such as Chicory 'Red Treviso Early', whose leaves are green in summer but in winter turn red.
Chicory is hardy and will cope in heavy soils. But, as always, the better you treat your soil, the better the plant.
