“Grow radishes” they say, they are so easy! Unfortunately that’s not been our experience. Every time we seem to make rookie mistakes.

Growing Radishes in the Summer

Radishes aren’t a vegetable we typically eat and were not high on our list of items to grow in our garden. But we read that they are quick and easy to grow making them a great beginner crop. So we bought a packet of radish seeds and planted them directly in our summer garden. That was our first rookie mistake.

Most radishes are cool weather plants. When grown in the heat, they bolt, growing really tall and not producing a bulb. Out of the 15 or so we planted maybe one was an edible size. At the time, we didn’t realize that the heat was the mistake, thinking the rocky soil was to blame. So we sewed another batch. This time in more amended soil, we thought we would succeed. Another fail. These bolted more than the last lot, leaving just limp stringy stems. We harvested the leaves and used them to make pesto. At least they weren’t a complete waste.

Growing Radishes in the Winter

Fast forward to the winter. With 12 inches of snow covering the ground for what has seemed like months we were anxious to get gardening. How about we try radishes! In our sunroom the inside temperature is a moderate 60-65F degrees in the winter, plenty comfortable for a cool weather plant like radishes! And radishes make great container plants. On January 18th we carefully sowed 8 radish seeds, four in each pot using the recommended depth and spacings. Under the grow lights they went. Like clockwork one, two, then all eight emerged from the soil after just four days. The Cherry Belle radish has a harvest date of 22 days. We were counting down every day! Harvest day became February 14th. And what a disaster. No radishes.

Turns out that radishes grown under grow lights can also bolt, especially if the light is too far away from the seedlings.

A New Start

Determined to figure this out, we tried again. This time planting a whole bunch in a much larger container allowing the light to be just inches away from the seedlings. We have a few more weeks until these will be ready to harvest so stay tuned to find out how we make out!