Garden results: Radish

FACTOID: Radishes are in the cabbage family.

Radishes mature quickly, so they are fun to grow and a few seeds may be a good addition to any survival pack (along with some seeds of other fast growing crops). Though they are not something I normally seek out to eat, I enjoy eating them out of my garden. The typical radishes mature in only 3 to 4 weeks and so you can have many plantings and harvests per season (Spring and Summer). Additionally, there are Fall/Winter varieties too, though they tend to grow slower. There are several things to say about radishes.

• One thing I discovered is that at least some plants do not like growing near radishes. Tomato plant growth gets stunted, the leaves get spotty and your tomato fruit yeild is reduced. So far, this is my only personal experience with this issue. I do not yet know of other non-complimentary situations.
• Many pests do leave radishes alone and so they are sometimes used around other plants to keep pests away (as are onions). Though I have encountered the occational leaf eating small green caterpillar. Caterpillars do love cabbage greens afterall. On the plants I had that went to seed, something did enjoy some of the pods as well. But, I have not had a single pest attack my radish roots.
• Another thing to be warned of is the distance between radish plants. If they are too close together they will not even begin to produce the large edible root you want, instead they quickly bolt (send up a flower stalk). In this situation they seem amazingly like an entirely different plant.
• Along with the mention of bolting, an interesting thing is not well known by many people. The seed pods produced by radishes that have bolted and gone to seed are very edible and are like a one to two inch uniquely flavored and very juicy/oily green bean. There are even varieties of radishes grown specifically for their seed pods/green beans. These are typically called rat-tail radishes and produce longer pods of six or more inches (some supposedly up to 12 or more inches).
• I found the inital two sprout leaves (pseudo leaves) of radish plants are tasty amd juicy when plucked before they dry up, additionally the regular leaves are also very edible and some people use them as salad greens. They are fuzzy on their under side, this is not pleasent to some people but for those that like steamed or otherwise cooked greens, I am told radish greens are fine.
• Thus the radish plant is entirely edible and fast growing. The only exception to this would be woody roots from going to seed or becoming too old and the stiff and woody flower/seed stalk (bolt).
• Flavor of radish root varies with age and watering routine. I have grown some that tasted nearly the same as a turnip and some that were sweet and some had a mild radish sting while others a very strong radish sting.
• For those that do not like radish root skin, I found fresh radish roots are fairly easy to peel by hand (like you would an orange).
• Radish roots store well in cool environments (like a crisper bin in the refrigerator, a proper root cellar, or even in a water tight container kept in a cool stream/river/lake), and last even longer if the greens are cut off.
• I found radishes to be easy to grow in pots/containers.
• Claims of larger sizes (over 1.25") seem to be inaccurate or my larger varieties just would not grow to their expected sizes due to being grown in containers. I'll be trying the 2 to 4" varieties in the ground next time. I have not yet tried growing the *very* large Asian varieties.