Growing Radishes

Latest Update 4th April 2020.

Radishes

• Radishes are best harvested young when the roots are at their most tender.
• We use them in salads and add them to soup.
• Organically grown radishes are full of flavour and very nutritious.
• They are grown all year round in clusters of 4 or 5 plants and are harvested together. 
• In my garden, radishes are rarely affected by pests or diseases. 

Details 

• Variety:                                                    Pink Lady Slipper.
• Binomial name:                                        Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. sativus
• Family group:                                           Brassiaceae.
• Crop rotation group:                                  Heavy feeders.
• Garden bed type:                                      Garden Ecobed.
• Minimum sun per day:                               6 hours.
• Plant spacings:                                         100 mm between clusters of 4 plants.
• Weeks to harvest:                                     8 weeks.
• Climate:                                                   Warm temperate.
• Geography:                                              Southern hemisphere.

Nutrition.

•  
• This food is very low in saturated fat and cholesterol. 
• It is a good source of vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium, copper and manganese; and it is a very good source of dietary fibre, vitamin C, folate and potassium.
• More from nutrition data.self.com.

Maintain Healthy Plants

• This blogpage explains how I maintain healthy plants.  It describes how soil is prepared prior to planting, how to regulate the sun's intensity and how to help protect and feed plants through their leaves.

Propagate Plants Efficiently

•  This blogpage explains how I propagate seeds in a purpose built propagator.

Propagation Plan 2020.

• This blogpage tells you when to sow seeds.

Services Plan 2020.

• This blogpage tells you when to make compost and plan other garden/household related activities.

Growing Instructions.

• Multi-sow 60 radish seeds in sieved compost in 15 small fibre pots.  Soak the pots in 15mm of dilute seaweed extract in a tray.  After about 15 minutes plant the pots in an EcoPropagator's. wicking medium up to their rims.  
• When the seedlings reach their 4th leaf stage transplant them into a prepared Ecobed.  Use a large dibber to make 15 planting holes about 100mm apart and bury the pots up to their rims.  Water them in with captured rainwater.
• Apply straw mulch on any exposed soil as soon as the radishes are established.
• I sow a row of 15 clusters every month of the year.

Harvesting and Storage.

• Radish can be harvested all year round and as a consequence I never store them for more than a few days.

Organic Pest Control.

• Radishes, like most vegetables, are vulnerable to attack from certain pests in my garden.  My blog "Controlling Garden Pests" explains a little about these pests and what to do to protect plants from them.  For details click on the appropriate link below.

• Slugs and snails.
• Greenhouse whitefly. 
• Cabbage white butterfly caterpillars.
• Aphids (greenfly).
• Root knot nematodes.