When should you pick radishes

Tips for Growing and Picking

Like tomatoes, radishes are a vegetable you have to grow yourself in order to enjoy their true flavor and knowing when to harvest radish is the key to that enjoyment. Grocery store radishes often taste quite spicy, but radishes grown in your garden and harvested at the correct time have a mild flavor and add a crisp crunch to salads and sandwiches. Members of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae), like broccoli and kale, these delicious globes of white flesh are also fun to grow. Here’s how to know when to pick radishes for peak flavor.

I grow many different varieties of radish in my garden, including some beautifully colored ones.

Why is knowing when to harvest radish important?

Unlike some other crops which can be harvested on a rolling basis as they ripen (green beans, peppers, and cucumbers, I’m talking about you!), radishes are a “once and done” crop. Each radish seed yields one radish root. If you miss the correct planting or harvesting time for radishes, your yield will be a whole lot of leaves and no delicious roots or over-ripe roots that are cracked, woody, and bitter. If you’ve tried growing radish before only for the plants to never develop their classic scarlet globe roots, you know the exact disappointment I’m talking about.

No matter which radish varieties you grow, success is all about the right timing. And I’m referring to both the timing of the planting and the timing of the harvest.

‘Cherry Belle’ is a classic red radish, though there are many other types you should grow, too.

Radish is a cool weather-loving crop. If you wait too long to plant radish seeds, the weather and soil will be too warm, and no roots will form. The leaves may be large and robust, but the root will look more like a rat tail root than a radish. Peak planting times are very early spring for late spring harvests and late summer for fall harvests.

When the planting is properly timed, figuring out when to harvest radish isn’t difficult, and there are several methods you can use to determine when the roots are ready to be pulled.

Radishes harvested at the peak of flavor are not woody or overly spicy.

They are crisp and flavorful. These ‘Easter Egg’ radishes are a favorite of my family.

When to harvest radish based on the planting date

Since radish seeds are most often planted in the very early spring, 4-6 weeks before your last spring frost, they are among the earliest spring harvests for most gardeners. In my Pennsylvania garden, our last expected spring frost date is May 15th, so I sow seeds into the garden straight out of the seed packet starting around the end of March. Then I continue to sow more radish seeds every week through April and until the end of May when the weather really starts to warm. Making multiple sowings like this keeps my family in radishes for weeks instead of days, and it keeps us from being overwhelmed with too many radishes all at once.

Sow a row of radish seeds every week to have a continuous harvest of roots.

One of the easiest ways to know when to harvest radish is to keep track of your planting dates. Most radish varieties are ready to be pulled 30 to 45 days after sowing the seeds. If you remember when you planted the seeds, it’s easy to determine the best harvesting date. Ripe radishes will only hold in the soil for a week or two past their peak. If you keep them in the ground too long, the roots taste bitter and the texture is woody. Plus, the plants will go to flower (which is great for the pollinators but not so good for the salad plate).

As mentioned earlier, late summer plantings can also be made for fall harvest. I start sowing more radish seeds in late August through September. They’re ready to pick 30-45 days after sowing.

It’s easy to base the harvest date on the planting date for radishes. Most are mature between 30 and 50 days after sowing.

When to harvest radish by their size

Another great way to know when to harvest radish is by the diameter of their roots. Typically, the “shoulders” of the roots stick out above the surface of the soil. This is totally normal and even serves as a good indicator of the maturity of your radish plants.

When they are seedlings, the top of the root gradually starts to color up and thicken. For classic round radish varieties, like Cherry Belle and Easter Egg, when the root’s diameter reaches about 1-inch across, they are ready for harvest. For oblong varieties, like White Icicle and French Breakfast (my favorite!), their root girth at maturity isn’t as thick since the roots are longer than they are wide. For these varieties, I harvest when the shoulder of the root is the same diameter as my thumb. Here again, don’t wait too long to harvest or the roots will split or become woody.

The “shoulders” of radishes often stick out of the soil, making it easy to see how large they are.

When to harvest radish based on the variety

Using the root size as a harvest indicator goes hand in hand with using the variety type as a harvest indicator since the variety determines the eventual size of the root. Generally speaking, a spring variety has thinner skin and won’t hold in the ground as long, while fall-planted winter radishes have thicker skins and can stay in the garden until the ground freezes even if they are fully mature. Some varieties are even bred specifically for fall and winter growing. Most that are, have a slightly longer maturation period; more like 50 to 60 days. China Rose and Watermelon radish are two wonderful winter varieties that are great for fall planting and late-season harvests. Many Daikon radish types can even be planted throughout the summer for fall and winter harvest.

Freshly harvested French Breakfast radishes are bright and crisp.

What to do if your radish roots don’t form

If your radish plants don’t form roots at all, there could be a few different factors at play.

You may have planted them too late. Remember, earlier is better than later. Aim for cold weather and soil that is cold but no longer frozen.
Even moisture is another key to success with radishes. If the soil dries out when the plants are just seedlings, the water stress will result in minimal “bulbing” of the roots.
You planted too closely. Radish roots need room to grow and fully form. Sow the seeds ½ to 1 inch apart. Or thin them to that spacing when they are small seedlings.
Do not feed radish fertilizers that are high in nitrogen. Nitrogen makes big leaves, not big roots. Use a balanced organic fertilizer or one that’s slightly higher in phosphorous (the middle number on the label) for the best results.
Mulch your radish plants to help stabilize soil temperatures and cut down on competition from weeds. Use shredded leaves, straw, or finished compost.
Test your soil pH every 3 to 4 years to be sure it falls in the optimum range for radish growth. 6.5 is an ideal target pH as that’s when the most nutrients are available to fuel plant growth. A pH that’s too high or too low can bind certain nutrients into the soil so plants can’t access them. (Learn more about managing soil pH here).

Radish is best planted by directly sowing the seeds into the garden soil when the weather is still cool. The plants do not like to be transplanted.

How to harvest radish roots

Aside from knowing when to harvest radish, it’s important to know how to harvest them. Round radishes are incredibly easy to harvest. They are shallow-rooted and a simple tug on the leaves is enough to uproot them. Oblong, oval, or deep-rooted radish types, like daikons, are a little more challenging. Use a trowel or garden fork to gently pry them out of the soil. Some of them can grow quite deep, so you’ll need to dig carefully.

Harvesting radishes is easy. Take a firm grasp of the foliage and pull up. Deep-rooted varieties may require a digging fork or trowel.

More tips for growing radish

After harvesting, cut off the leaves and wash the roots under cool running water. Pack the roots into plastic bags and put them in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. I put a slightly moist paper towel in the bottom of each bag to keep the roots from drying out. When stored this way, they’ll keep for 4 to 6 weeks.
The main insect pests of radishes are flea beetles, aphids, and cabbageworms. Flea beetles cause small irregular holes in the leaves which are more aesthetic than damaging. I ignore them. I also ignore aphids. Within a few days of them showing up, the ladybugs, lacewings, and other aphid predators arrive and take care of the problem for me. If cabbageworms become problematic, here are some tips for managing cabbageworms organically.
If your radish go to flower because the weather grows too hot before you can harvest, all is not lost. The seed pods that follow the flowers are edible and taste just like the roots. Pick them when they begin to swell.

Flea beetles are a common pest of radish plants. Thankfully the damage they cause is mostly aesthetic.

I hope you’ll enjoy cultivating your own homegrown roots with these tips on when to harvest radish and the accompanying info on how to time the plantings. They’ll become a fast favorite for both their flavor and their ease of growth.

Radishes make a great crop for containers. They don’t need a deep pot and thrive in potting soil mixed with compost.

Here are more articles on when to harvest various crops:

When to harvest beets
Tips for picking spinach
The best time to harvest peas
When to pick broccoli heads
Making the rhubarb harvest
The best time to pick tomatillos
Carrot harvesting tips

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3 Signs That Your Radishes Are Ready to Be Harvested from the Garden • Gardenary

Published October 26, 2022 by Nicole Burke

Filed Under:

radishes

when to harvest

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How

Can You Tell When Radishes Are Ready?

I like my radishes a little bit spicy and 100% crisp. The problem is, since they’re growing underground, how can you tell when they’ve grown to perfection?

My first couple of seasons growing radishes, I was nervous if anything was happening under the surface at all. My plants produced lots of lush green leaves above ground, but when I harvested them, I was disappointed by the tap root size. Over the years, I’ve learned three signs to look for to harvest perfect, salad-ready radishes.

You're within the window of the time guideline on your radish seed packet

I know, this one seems obvious, but how many of us have tried to assemble a piece of furniture without reading the directions? I may ignore the spacing suggestions on the backs of those little seed packs, but I’ve found that their time-to-harvest estimates are usually pretty accurate, plus or minus 10 days or so, especially when the weather has been optimal.

Let's say you're planting your first round of French breakfast radishes in early March. You'll come out about seven to ten days later to thin radish seedlings to give your top plants adequate space to grow their tap roots. You'll return in early April, or after about 30 days from planting (as the packet most likely recommends), to check on their growth.

Different types of radishes have different grow times, so be sure to check your packet.

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The radish greens above the soil have grown to be 6 to 8 inches tall

It’s true for most plants that the root growth and the shoot growth imitate one another when it comes to pacing. As above, so below, so to speak. If you don't see a lot of green growth above the soil line, then there’s probably not much happening to your little radish root below either. On the other hand, if one shoot has grown significantly taller than its neighbors, the radish attached to it will probably be just a little too big.

For French breakfast radishes, look for greens that are about six to eight inches tall.

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The radish passes the shoulder test

The shoulder of a radish is the part that pushes up against the topsoil, the part that breaks through when you give the shoots overhead a good tug. Use your finger to sweep around the base of the greens a bit to see if you can feel the shoulders. If you don’t feel anything, the radish probably needs more time to develop, so just push the soil back in place to give the teenage radish more privacy.

Sometimes, the radishes show you they’re ready to harvest by popping their shoulders above ground to say hi. They’re not likely to continue growing much once they’re bursting out of the ground, so that makes the decision to pull or not to pull really easy!

What happens if you leave a radish in the soil too long?

When radishes are near their time to harvest, it’s really important to watch them. If you harvest them too late, they can become starchy. I wanted to grow huge radishes for a photoshoot one year; they may have looked camera-ready, but they ended up tasting awful. Here's how to salvage your radishes if you leave them in the soil too long.

What can you plant after you've harvested your radishes?

Once you pull up your first batch of perfect radishes, you might be wondering what to do with that empty space in your garden. After all, the last thing you want to do is leave soil bare, right?

If you know that you're still going to have the right temperature for radishes for at least 30 more days, you can always plant a second round. Just add a handful of compost and sow more radish seeds in the areas you've just harvested your first round from. That way, you can keep enjoying radishes through the rest of your growing season!

To me, that’s the beauty of a kitchen garden: you can keep coming back and planting more, growing more, so that there's always something to harvest.

If, however, you expect the weather to change soon, you can plant something else in that spot to prepare for the upcoming growing season. I recommend going with something from a different family, so you could, for example, grow bush beans to hang over the side of your raised garden bed, or you could add some basil as soon as you're frost-free.

Learn the step by step to plant, set up, and grow your own organic salad garden and enjoy fresh greens at least six months each year.

Enjoy your perfect homegrown radishes!

I hope this guide has you harvesting crisp radishes of all different shapes and sizes in no time!

For more tips on growing perfect French breakfast radishes, read my full growing suggestions. If you'd like to save your own radish seeds for next season, here's how to harvest and store seeds.

Don’t forget: you can also eat the radish greens. That means radishes are double your money!

Happy growing, my friends.

Harvest radishes: tips and tricks

Young, juicy radishes are probably the most anticipated of the first spring vegetables that delight us in the beds, when after a long winter and rather boring pickles, you really want to enjoy a salad of green onions and fresh radishes, and then just crunch on your favorite vegetable, just picking it from the garden. But for all its apparent simplicity, radishes, like all garden crops, require certain rules for growing and harvesting in order for the harvest to please you. Of course, before you start harvesting, radishes need to be grown. We talked about this in detail in other articles, and today we’ll talk about how to properly harvest.

Content

1 Features of Redis cleaning
2 collection of root crops
3 Collection of seeds
4 videos “How to collect seeds of radishes”

Features of radish cleaning

Crowning radishes do not cause special troubles, reason if you did not aim at an industrial scale of several hectares, but limited yourself to planting a vegetable on an area of several square meters. m. But even if your root crop plantation has an impressive size of 1 or more hectares, there will be no additional difficulties in care, and the process will simply take longer. It is possible to facilitate the care of large-scale plantings on several hectares if you purchase special agricultural equipment, for example, a radish harvester.

In order for the beds with your favorite vegetable to yield maximum root crops, the crop is harvested in several stages, with an interval of several days. As a rule, early varieties ripen faster, therefore, they can be harvested first of all, when plants of other varieties are still actively growing. If root crops of early varieties are left in the soil for at least a few days longer than the prescribed period, they will deteriorate very quickly. Radishes of late varieties require a longer period for full ripening, but they have better transport and preservation properties. Winter-grade radishes can be successfully stored in the soil even through the winter, though they need to be covered with a protective layer of mulch (such as straw).

As a rule, early varieties of radishes bear fruit already 30 days after sowing, winter varieties are ready for harvest after 60 days. But regardless of the variety and ripening period, it is very important not to miss the moment when you can harvest. If this is not done on time, then the root crops will become flabby and lethargic, and also acquire a bitter taste.

Harvesting root crops

When harvesting root crops, great attention should be paid to their size: mature radishes should exceed 2.5 cm in diameter.

There are several rules for when and how to pick your favorite root crop:

Before pulling the plant out of the ground, rake some soil from the top of the plant to determine the size of the root crop. All plants with a diameter of 2.5 cm or more can be harvested. If the root crop of the selected plant is still small, it must be sprinkled with soil to allow it to ripen.
Since spring varieties take less time to ripen, they should be checked as often as possible so as not to miss the right moment.
If you are harvesting your radishes in the fall, plan your activities so that you have time to harvest before the first frosts come.

Radishes are harvested by simply pulling the leaves. If we are talking about industrial cultivation on an area of several hectares, then farmers use a radish harvester - a great helper that can not only collect root crops with high quality, but also effectively clean them from tops. Such a harvester is simply indispensable if the task is to harvest radishes from vast areas of tens of hectares, while planting on several square meters. m can be easily processed by hand.

So, if, after all, such a luxury as a combine harvester is not yet available to you, then we collect your favorite vegetable by simply pulling it out of the ground.

If the growing conditions are respected and the plantings have been properly thinned out, then you can easily pull out only the desired plant without harming neighboring root crops.

Immediately after harvesting, each root must be cut off the tops. Sometimes green mass is used for cooking. A modern food processor is able to make a delicious salad out of it in a matter of seconds. But if such dishes are not for you - just throw it away.

Harvested radishes are stored in a refrigerator (or special cold rooms if harvested from several hectares).

Collecting seeds

In order to get seeds, some of the plants will have to be left in the ground. It should be remembered that the roots of such plants will not be suitable for human consumption.

After the main plantings of radishes are harvested, the plants intended to give seeds continue to be looked after as usual. After a few days, pods will appear on them, in which seeds are formed: at first, each plant knocks out a stem, on which nondescript flowers appear, and these, in turn, quickly turn into pods.

When the pods begin to dry and turn yellow, they can be harvested. Sometimes these seed pods are eaten - they are perfect for vegetable vitamin salads. If your goal is seed, then the seeds must be dried. Ready-to-storage radish seeds have a brown color and are stored in a hermetically sealed vessel.

As a rule, in order to obtain seed material that is enough for several square meters. m, a dozen or two plants are enough. In turn, in order to sow more than 1 ha, several square meters can be left for seeds. m of plants.

The rules for harvesting both the radish crop and its seeds are the same for all scales: when you have to manage a huge plantation of ten hectares, and if your garden occupies only a few square meters. m. Observe simple conditions for care and storage, and, possibly, the crop you harvested from 1 square. m beds will be better than many get with a hectare. Maybe the days when you will need a radish harvester are not far away? After all, the main thing in gardening is not the number of square meters. m of soil, but how to care for them.

How to Harvest Radish Seed Video

This video shows how to harvest radishes if you have left them for seed.

When to Harvest Radish Seeds: A Complete Guide

It would seem, well, why try to grow radish seeds yourself? There is a huge choice of any kind of varieties: domestic or Dutch, intended for the greenhouse or open ground, with a wide variety of characteristics. But many summer residents who are serious about the garden prefer to get their own radish seeds in order to be sure of germination, preserving the qualities of the variety. Often there is poor quality seed in bright bags, Dutch hybrids (with F1 in the name) become more and more expensive with a small amount of seeds in a bag.

Contents

1 How to get seeds
2 Features of growing radishes for seeds
3 Technology for collecting and extracting seeds
4 Video "Collecting radish seeds"

How to get seeds 9002 in your garden quite easy. They lie perfectly and remain viable for 6 or more years. Experienced gardeners who have organized the cultivation of several varieties receive them every year from one variety, constantly replenishing their stocks, without the need to purchase expensive Dutch seed at all.

If you don't know which variety to choose, then buy a few that you like with their description or those that you have already tried. Plant your seed in the area as you normally would, and then select the seed(s) you want to grow next year. The choice must be made after sampling the harvest - when you taste the root crops, you will see how they grew. So you can easily decide which radish seeds to choose.

Do not attempt to propagate Dutch (or other) F1 hybrids. Their seeds do not retain their varietal characteristics. If you get Dutch F1 seeds and then sow them, they may not sprout at all, or their germination will not produce a crop.

The fact is that the authors of these Dutch F1s are trying to protect their products, this is their income, which they want to have stable. But there are many real varieties of early or late radishes, the seed of which perfectly retains its properties.

With an increase in daylight hours to 13 or more hours, the radish shoots, that is, it forms a peduncle, which makes its root crop coarse, hard and tasteless. The flowers bloom are modest, four-petalled, white, yellow or lilac in color with a strong pleasant smell that easily attracts insects. Radish is a cross-pollinating plant, but it can also be self-pollinating. It pollinates easily with different varieties or with radishes. Pollen is carried by insects or wind.

After pollination, it forms a fruit-pod, and it can form from 4 to 8 pods. Radish seeds are very small - 1000 pieces and weigh 10 g on average. Only half a glass of seeds is collected from 10 seed (or mother) plants.

Peculiarities of growing radish for seeds

Radish seeds can be obtained in two ways - transplanted or direct. The second is usually used in industrial cultivation, it takes up to 160 days. The transplant method allows you to get the result a little faster - about 120 days after germination is enough. In addition, it allows you to make a more accurate selection of plants for propagation. The choice of planting material is easier to do when the crop ripens massively and when all varietal differences are visible.

You need to choose a plant with a large, even in shape and color of the root crop, make sure that it does not crack, does not rush to form an arrow. When a plant with a quality root crop is selected for propagation, one can hope for the same offspring.

The selected plant (several is better) is taken out of the ground, examined carefully. If the choice is confirmed, then the spine is shortened to 3 cm, the outer leaves are removed, leaving 3 or 4 in the very center of the rosette - this should stimulate the formation of a peduncle. The root is dipped into a special mash, made from equal parts of mullein and clay, diluted with water to a liquid state. This will help to quickly form new roots and save existing roots from drying out during all these manipulations. Plants are planted on a light bed protected from the wind at a distance of up to 50 cm from each other, away from radishes and radishes. Root crops are buried in the soil by 2-3 cm, watered abundantly.

In order to protect against possible cross-pollination, the plants are covered with a film or non-woven material during flowering. The bed is closed as soon as at least one flower appears. The fact is that cross-pollination is possible, even if a radish of a different variety or a radish blooms at a distance of up to 500 m. If this happens, then the seeds will not retain their varietal qualities, it will turn out like with Dutch F1 hybrids - there will be no shoots or no root crop is formed. If seed of different varieties is grown on the site, then the beds with it should be placed as far as possible and carefully covered.

After 2 weeks, when flowering has already completely ended and pods have formed, the covering material is removed, and high arrows are tied to a support to protect them from accidental damage. For the prevention of diseases and pests, plants are treated with "Soon" or "Fufanon". After a month, the seeds begin to ripen, and birds begin to take an interest in them. To protect them, they are again covered with non-woven material. During cultivation, seed plants are cared for in the same way as before - they are watered, weeded, and the earth around them is loosened.

Seed collection and extraction technology

Early radishes ripen in August, late radishes in September. You need to collect them after the pods begin to open.

They are cut straight with the stems, tied in bunches, hung by the stems until completely dry in a shady place, for example, in the attic.