Grow Your Own Radishes

Lesson 5: Extending Your Radish Harvest

Catch Me If You Can
One of the advantages of a quick-growing vegetable like the radish is that it can occupy space left by other crops but still have enough time to mature by the end of summer. This type of vegetable-growing is known as "catch-cropping". You can use this technique if you're also following our lettuce-growing course, for example. Once your cos lettuces have finished, sow radishes in the space left behind. (This doesn't work for cut and come again loose-leaf varieties, of course: they'll be in the ground all summer.) Be aware that radishes can suffer if they're exposed to too much midsummer sun. But lettuces are best grown in an area with some shade, anyway, so this catch-crop twinning is a good combination.

Late Summer Bounty
Even if you're not employing a catch-cropping technique, now is a good time to sow a few more radishes for harvesting towards the end of the summer. As with catch-cropping, just make sure you don't choose too sunny a spot. Very warm and dry conditions can result in over-hot radishes that fail to form a proper bulb.

Solving Problems
Radishes are one of the easiest veggies to grow successfully, so you're unlikely to have had too many problems so far. But difficulties do arise. Sometimes, bulbs fail to mature properly. This can be because of hot, dry conditions (see above). Another cause is that they haven't been thinned properly. If they're too close together, the radishes will be competing for scarce resources. Check the correct thinning distances given in Lesson 2. If the bulbs are cracked, they have been in the ground too long before being harvested. An uneven watering regime can also cause this condition. Don't let the ground around your crop dry out and then water them enthusiastically. You'll be setting yourself up for a bunch of cracked radishes.

Pic: GAP Photos/FhF Greenmedia