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\nRaphanus sativus<\/p>\n
When I was a kid our family just didn’t do radishes. In fact, we avoided a lot of the mustard family in general, no radishes in salad, no horseradish sauce, no mustard greens. On very rare occasions, wild harvested watercress would venture into a plate or two. But that was about it. Well…things changed for me last year. I read how Tobi Hemenway uses daikons to improve soil aeration and I also saw a video about Sepp Holzer in Austria and was inspired by his enthusiasm for the lowly radish. I’m quickly warming up to this spicy little vegetable. It has some great qualities!<\/p>\n
Radishes are pretty tough and very easy to grow, I simply sowed a few varieties around the property and many of them germinated and grew through this year’s dry winter without any inputs on my part. A good portion of those abused radishes were really bitter, but in their defense, they grew where many other vegetables would have just given up and died. The best flavor came with those that received consistent water. I’m currently enjoying my late spring batch of French Breakfast radishes. They have a mild heat to them, but it is not overbearing. I also find the red and white contrast of the root to be striking. A great way to add visual interest to a salad.
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\nRadishes germinate and grow extremely fast. Even the large daikon radishes only take 45 days till maturity and varieties like French Breakfast can be ready in three weeks. For the edible landscape, they can be valuable for filling in a space quickly and are great to mix in with slower germinating, slower growing plants. While the slower plants are getting started, the radishes will already be off to the races, putting down shallow roots, shading the soil and providing green filler for bare areas. In the picture below I used the classic radish and carrot combination, which is very effective for providing a constant harvest, yet also keeping leaf cover in an area over a few months. The trick is to keep the area evenly and consistently moist while the seeds are germinating in order to get an even ‘carpet’ of radishes and carrots. For this combination, I will top dress the sown seeds with coconut mulch, when I see the coconut mulch is dry, it is time to give the area another shot of water. While it can be tedious, your initial vigilance will yield a nice visual and edible pay off over the next few months.
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\nIf you let them, or forget about them, radishes also have small but pretty flowers that grow between 2 and 3 feet tall. I had some Minowase daikons that didn’t set great tubers, and I kind of forgot about them until they burst into flower and continued to flower through the month of March. Radish flowers are edible: the flavor reminds me slightly of kale with floral tones. It is not a very strong flavor, but they are definitely a great garnish for salads or soups!
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\nAnother thing I discovered is that young radish seed pods are delicious! I let my Minowase daikons go to seed and found that I actually preferred the taste of the young seed pods to the radish itself. They still had the spiciness of the radish, but with some additional flavors from the seeds and seed pod that I really enjoyed. The seed pods were prolific, and I am kicking myself now for not eating more. Once the pods started to mature, both the flavor and texture suffered. Right now I am letting different varieties of radish go to seed now to see what the seed pods of other varieties taste like. The pods themselves look interesting initially, but for my daikons, as they matured the pods grew heavy and caused the whole stem to droop towards the ground. I’m going to save the seeds and pray that they didn’t do some crazy cross with a wild mustard in the area. Guess we’ll find out next year…should be interesting.<\/p>\n
Radishes can have multiple uses throughout their brief growing period. Their flavor is not for everyone, but I think more people should give them a try. Make sure you try a young, garden-fresh radish to be sure you get the full experience. And for those who might be on the fence about radishes, try this simple raw radish herb spread that I whipped up recently. It is really good on toast (prepared like you would garlic bread) or as a last minute addition to a stir fry. I imagine that it would also be a good seasoning for roasted or BBQ beef dishes, but I have yet to test that theory. Anyway, here you go. Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Radish Herb Spread – makes about one cup<\/p>\n
1 bunch of garlic chives
\n2 large garlic cloves
\n5 or 6 medium radishes (I used French Breakfast)
\n1 or 2 tsp white vinegar
\n2 tbsp olive oil<\/p>\n
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and chop until the vegetables are nicely minced. Let sit for an hour to let the flavors set, then use wherever you might use minced garlic. The oil and vinegar should preserve the ingredients for at least a week if refrigerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[simage=49,320,n,none] Raphanus sativus<\/p>\n
When I was a kid our family just didn’t do radishes. In fact, we avoided a lot of the mustard family in general, no radishes in salad, no horseradish sauce, no mustard greens. On very rare occasions, wild harvested watercress would venture into a plate or two. But that was about it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[31,42,44,46,83,88,90,100],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edible-landscapes","tag-carrot","tag-daikon","tag-edible-flower","tag-edible-landscaping","tag-plant-profiles","tag-radish","tag-raphanus-sativus","tag-soup","odd"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.porchsideecology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}