HOW TO GROW RADISHES

Radishes and the first chickpea, fresh from the garden

Let's face it, some vegetarian food is deadly dull in taste, particularly if your tongue has been educated from babyhood on sweet stuff, or rich French cuisine, or a fat cheese burger. A radish salad recipe is half the answer... it adds a bit of spice to your vegan food.

My favourite spicy addition is the red radish, partly because I just love red, ever since I saw Pretty Woman (Richard Gere and Julia, the Queen, could any film be otherwise?) and listened to Lady in Red, and partly because it's the red colour in food that gives protection to the prostate gland. Every man should guard his prostate gland from the big C, and that means tomatoes and red radish... the alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. Impotence.

Searching for something specific? Say, " Prostate Tomato link ". Just type it in here...

Custom Search

PLANTING RADISHES @ HOW TO GROW RADISHES

These radish are grown in pure well-rotted compost from a pile of old sticks and rotten logs. Read here about how I made it... Composting with sticks and old logs, alternatively a compact compost tumbler ...

So well rotted that it just looks like soil. Not so. Given time and the right environment (dark and moist) any vegetable matter including old trunks will decay into compost. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes... yes we too will one day be well rotted compost! Our bodies that is, the spirit lives for ever... Bernard Preston's lonly road of faith ...



Enough, enough, back to planting radishes. Because they mature so quickly (3-4 weeks), I always grow them between rows of other veg. Below you can see where She who must be Obeyed (have one of them in your home?!!) has planted two rows of cabbages. Cabbages take a long time to mature, so whilst she wasn't looking, I snuck in a row of radish nutrition! Grumbles? Of course, but when her mouth's full of the nutritional value of radishes, those grumbles I can vouch will cease!

Another big advantage is that when she is watering and weeding the cabbages I don't have to fuss with growing radishes! I plant, she waters and weeds and the Good Lord gives the growth. Then we all tuck into the nutritional value of radishes!

RADISH SEEDS @ HOW TO GROW RADISHES

Just use a trowel to make a small trench about half an inch deep, pop the seeds in about two centimetres apart, you don't need a seed drill!, cover them with a little fine soil, and hey presto in less than a month you'll be enjoying the benefits of eating radishes! I just love the crunchy-crunchy in a salad, and the bite with our OLIVE GARDEN SALAD recipe.
So, a small trench about a centimetre deep.

TIP: Don't plant too many radish seeds. Rather plant a row every two weeks. Just sneak them in between rows of leeks, or lettuces or green beans... where the boss has just planted. Whilst she isn't looking! Provided you give her tea in bed in the morning, the earful won't be too bad!

Wow, the cabbages are shooting up too in that compost.

These seedlings in the graphic below are now 10 days old. In theory we should be eating them in about two weeks, but we had a devastating hail storm last night, oh the joys of gardening, so we wait to see...! You can see the cabbages and lettuce that the boss has planted are growing too. My radishes will be out, long before her salads are ready.

GROWING RADISH

HOW TO GROW RADISHES

I must have been drunk and disorderly the day I snuck these between Helen's leeks. Much too thick.

RADISH HEALTH

Here they are, 4 weeks to the day. To be honest another week would be good, some are still small. A bad hailstorm set them back.

Nevertheless they will have a radishing health effect on our family! You either like their bite, or you don't. I do, and I like the effect they have on other foods. Like this hummus which is rather tasteless otherwise. Today I'm experimenting a bit: adding a couple Chinese guavas (the purplish fruit in the background) from our garden. They too are a bit tart, better know for Chinese guava jelly. I wonder what this week's chickpea garbanzo bean dip (hummus) will taste like?

OVER-CROWDING

AUTHENTIC HUMMUS RECIPE

HOW TO GROW RADISHES