We had a very nice time at the Spring Gardening Masterclass on Saturday – thanks to all of you that made the trek.
If you missed it, we’ll be having SCRUBFEST III at the same location on October 19th. I also hope to release the talks we did at this spring event, via a super secret platform we’ve been working on.
Right now in the gardens, our daikon radish landrace project is producing a ton of seeds again. This will be the third generation, and if previous results hold, we’ll end up with more more purple and white roots and less pure red and pure white ones.
This is an update from December. The bed looked like this back then:
It looks like this now:
The radishes are loaded with seed pods, and we should get lots and lots for our fall planting.
Most of the seed pods are close to harvest, with a few late bloomers still flowering:
The bases of the roots are huge and gnarly:
We didn’t plant and purple radishes to begin with. They were all either red or white. This is what has happened via our crosses. Now many of the roots look like purple-top turnips (though they taste better than that benighted root).
Saving seeds gives you another harvest from your garden. If you can leave some plants around in a bed and keep the seeds, you are creating potential future generations of crops that won’t require you buying more seed. Plus, they should adapt better to your garden over time.
If you don’t have this book, go buy it:
It will change how you think about seeds and gardening.
7 comments
Hi David,
Sorry to make a comment here…but didn’t know of another way to contact you. I commented on a post about sheep a while back that we would have a few ready for sale in May. We are located 1.5-2 hours east of you. Let me know if you’re still interested. You can contact me via email.
The immature seedpods of daikon radishes are delicious; excellent raw in salads. I recently grew the rat-tail radish, which is grown specifically for its long seedpods. The rat-tail seedpods were stringy and not very flavorful; the daikon seedpods are/were delicious.
The “party line/expert view” on radishes is that they are a cool season crop only here in Florida. However I have had volunteer seedlings sprout in late July and grow, without going to seed as the “party line/experts” claim is certain to happen. The quality of summer-grown radishes is lower than cool season ones, as the greens wilt in the day and snap back at night. Mustard greens similarly will grow in the heat without going to seed, and again the quality is lower.
I have had the same thing happen with daikons in NW Florida: some summer volunteers that grew and made big roots that were quite edible, though not as tasty as fall-sown daikons.
On the other hand, I have never been able to grow daikons from a late winter or spring sowing. Every time I tried, the lengthening days make every single one of them bolt when they are tiny. I’ve learned my lesson and in late winter and spring I only sow the little spring radishes .
Thanks for the tip about eating the immature seedpods – I will try that next time I grow daikons.
I am in the Pacific Northwest, and we have a similar issue with radishes, they bolt early if you plant them in the spring, which is OK if you want the little red ones or you want the leaves and seeds. Last year I saved seed from my daikon when the bolted early and sowed them in where I dug my potatoes in July, and we had daikons in the fall and on to the early winter. Previously I had tried to start them later, in the fall, and they never amounted to much over winter. By the time they were getting a useful size it was time to start my spring crops.
Also in Alabama..met briefly at Dothan event. My numerous daikon radish seed pods are being eaten while going from green to yellow. Are you able to harvest the seed pods green and let them dry/mature? Or must you keep them intact until they are brown–dramatically reducing seeds saved? If you know. Thanks.
You might be able to pull the entire daikon plant and hang it up somewhere safe for the seeds to mature and dry, root and all.
>keep them intact until they are brown
For seed production (for planting): I leave the pods on the plant, in-place in the garden, until the pods and plant are brown.
For eating the seedpods: only green and immature pods are harvested. The brown and yellow ones are too tough to eat (for me).