Radishes: Easy to Grow, Tasty and Good For You!

Cherry Belle Radishes

For people making their first stab at gardening, radishes are just about the perfect plant. They’re easy to plant, hardy, and – above all – tasty. They’re great for getting kids interested in gardening, too: the seeds are big enough for little fingers to handle (unlike carrots or lettuce) and you get quick results, too. Most varieties poke up those first little leaves in six or seven days and even better, you can start eating your bounty in less than a month. Also great is that you can plant radishes, even the first of the season, while your tomato and pepper plants are still baby-sized.

A Cherry Belle Radish is the radish you think of when grocery shopping; small spheres with bright red skin and white flesh. They’re fairly mild, although the will develop some bite if you let them mature a few extra weeks. The extra time can develop a horseradish-like flavor. If it’s a mild radish you prefer, you might try the French Breakfast cultivar.

Radishes may be planted from about a month before your mean last frost date and you can keep planting them until just before your mean first frost. Where I live on the Gulf Coast, they’ll happily overwinter and produce around Christmas or Valentine’s Day , though they tend to wilt in the summer heat.

Typical package directions say to plant them half an inch deep. After they’ve come up, thin the seedlings to about two inches apart. Instead of pulling out extra seedlings, I snip them with herb scissors. That way I don’t disturb the root systems of the plants left to grow. I usually two feet or so of seeds, then add a similar length a week or ten days later. That way the bulbs don’t all come to maturity at the same time and I have a consistent crop (radishes can’t be preserved). 

Radishes add a little spice and lots of crunch to salads, and can of course be eaten alone as well. We often add them to posole, and they can be found used in Sonoran-Mexican cuisine, typically burritos and quesadillas. Nutritionally-speaking, radishes are  fat-free; anti-inflammatory; and rich in nutrients such as Vitamin C, folate, the B vitamins and iron. 

In short, easy-to-grow Cherry Belle radishes are good and good for you!

Summary

PLUS: nutritious, delicious, simple to grow

MINUS: maybe if they were a little bigger

What They're Saying: Cherry Belle Radishes are usually the first seeds I plant, and the first harvest from my garden. Good thing they're yummy!

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