Antagonistic Plants to Radishes:
Increase Crop Yields in a Small Space with Radishes - The nice thing about radishes is that they can be harvested in only a few weeks. This means you can plant them in one of your containers at the beginning of the season and have them harvested before planting something else in the same container - and you can do it again by planting radishes at the end of the season, after a container with some other vegetable has been harvested. Also, carrots benefit from being planted together with radishes as they sprout quickly and break the soil for the much more delicate carrot seedlings, making more of your carrots grow. Just be sure to harvest the radishes before they crowd out the carrots.
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The Radish Journal
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| Radishes Sprouting on April 26 & 27, 2014 |
April 27, 2014 - My radishes took the outside of the time-frame stated on the package (4-6days) to come through the soil. I planted them on Saturday, April 19, and they just started poking through on Saturday, April 26. By the next day, you could really see them coming up, causing ruptures in the soil as they pushed through. I wasn't really surprised it took a little longer for them to come up. We've had nothing but cold, drizzly, wet days all week. A little bit of sun poked through yesterday and warmed things up, then presto! Radishes! Today was cool again, with periods of rain, but again some sun poked through and you can see the plants have already grown quite a bit in one day. I'll let them come up a bit more, then they will need to be thinned to be about 5cm (2in) apart from each other.
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May 1, 2014 - The great thinning of the radishes took place today. It says on the package to thin them out to be 5cm/2in apart, but I probably only spaced them out to be an inch or an inch and a half apart - we'll see how it goes... maybe I'll end up with Siamese radishes. This is something I always seem to struggle with out on the balcony - overcrowding. With a limited growing space, the more you can stuff into a pot, you think the more you will grow... however, it often turns out that putting too many plants into the same pot stunts growth and gives you smaller yields. Well, at least with radishes, they grow so fast that it's not much skin off your teeth if you have to plant a few more later on.
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As well, even though I planted the second radishes a few days after the first ones, they sprouted much quicker and caught up to the other ones very fast. I think it all had to do with them both being exposed to hot weather at the same time, whereas the first seeds struggled through some cold and drizzly weather.
Also, don't just pitch your radish clippings. Save and clean them, then add them to your salad, like I did after harvesting my first bit of Mesclun Mix Greens. Holy smokes, that stuff grows fast too!
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May 22, 2014
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My radishes (above) look good - but I fear for them. I don't think I thinned them nearly well enough. They are actually overdue to be picked, having been out there for around a month while the package says they should be ready in three weeks, but I have left them in a bit longer because the actual radishes beneath are doing the pits. I've pulled up the odd one and there is nothing at all on the root, so I dug around a bit with my little shovel and found a few - but they are not the norm and are not very large. On the package it said to thin them about 2 inches between the plants, but I seen other people who were doing them about 1 inch apart. I fear I have fallen prey to the container-gardener's disease and planted too many, too close. I'll harvest them in a couple more days to see but I'm not holding my breath..
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May 24, 2014
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Well, like I said the other day, I was going to be pulling up the radishes but wasn't going to hold my breath. Good thing I didn't! This was just pathetic.
I had two full containers of radishes, one where I was using the radishes to break the soil for the carrots - and they destroyed my poor little carrots. I certainly won't be trying that "little trick" again. In fact, this whole harvesting of the radishes fiasco is so embarrassing that I hardly want to post the results, but I will because I want to show my mistakes as well as my successes.
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There were hardly any radishes under there at all. Like I said in my last post, I suspect that I got too greedy and planted them too close together. I thinned them about an inch apart because I seen some other people who were doing it that close, but on the package, it says to thin them two inches apart. Lesson learned: listen to the package, dumb-ass. These were even left in the containers for more than a week longer than what the package recommended, and they still didn't pan out.
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Yup, that's all that two pots produced. However, it is true that all clouds have a silver lining. Check out that one picture of about the only decent radish I pulled. That picture kicks butt! It belongs on a magazine cover!
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Meh. What do you do when you live a shoe? I'll plant some more later this year, since they take such a short time to grow. Next time I will do better.
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April 7, 2015
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The strawberries have perked up and the radishes and kale have poked up nicely, so I guess that's the silver lining to this cloud.
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| Radishes (Left) and Kale (Right) |
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April 22, 2015
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The strawberries have started to flower, and the radishes are plugging along, although I thought they'd be bigger by now. Perhaps I planted them too early... I hope I don't get a repeat of the Great Radish Famine of 2014!
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| Strawberries (Left) and Radishes (Right) |
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