May 06, 2020
Successful radishes...
Easy to grow, many gardeners are however often disappointed with their radish harvest.
Follow these tips for a better harvest:
In a sunny location, work the soil to make it loose. Add a few shovelfuls of compost.
Draw a furrow with the handle of your rake, a stick, your finger...
TIP: In order for the roots to develop properly, check the variety of your radishes; of 'long or round type' to know at what depth to sow:
- Long variety (example Radis Petit Déjeuner Français): sown 2 cm deep.
- Round variety (example Radis Cherry Belle): surface sowing, 5 mm deep.
Radishes need space: 5 cm between each seed.
Too tight sowing harms the development of the root. And this is how often, only stems and flowers have been harvested without even having seen a semblance of a globular root forming.
As soon as the radishes have reached their size, they must be harvested. If left in the garden for a few more days, they become very pungent, even fibrous.
Finally, if you grow the melon radish or the black radish which are storage radishes, you can sow them very early in the spring, but even better, wait until mid or late July for a fall harvest. Kept cold, they will garnish your salads with freshness during the winter or will be useful for your fermented vegetables.
In the radish, the whole plant is edible: the leaves, the flowers and the pods: Salad, soup, quiche, gratin etc.
Happy gardening!
