Living Frugal
Growing Radishes in Your Home Vegetable Garden
Growing radishes in your home vegetable garden is quite easy and they produce a quick harvest in your garden. They are very hardy and you can produce several crops per season since they are quick to mature.
Radishes in the home vegetable garden can produce a harvest in less than a month!!
You can grow radishes in both the spring and fall but you want to forgo them in the warmer months of the year as they are a cool season vegetable.
You are ready to start growing radishes in the spring as soon as the last chance for frost has passed. Don't wait too late to plant them because they do not do well in warmer weather.
You can also start your planting later in the fall approximately 6 weeks prior to the first frost.
Since radishes grow so quickly, there's no need to fertilize them but if you have heavy soil you do want to use compost to "lighten up" the soil.
Planting Radishes
- To prepare the garden soil for radishes, loosen the soil about 10 inches deep while mixing with compost.
- Sow approximately a half inch deep and one inch apart while keeping the rows at least 12 inches apart.
- When the small radish seedlings pop out of the ground, thin them down to 3 inches apart.
- Your radish seeds will start sprouting in about 7 days.
It's Harvest Time
- When you see the top portion of the radish poking up out of the garden soil, it's harvest time.
- Radishes should be harvested by pulling lightly or loosening the surrounding garden soil.
- Don't let mature radishes sit in the ground or they lose their quality and become tough.
Health Benefits of Radishes
Not only do radishes taste good and grow quickly, they have many health benefits.
Radishes give you plenty of Vitamin C. A 1/2 cup serving can provide up to 14 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C. Don't forget that Vitamin C isn't just a needed nutrient, but it's also a fighter against free radicals that cause cancer and heart disease.
Radishes also contain fiber. Fiber lowers your risk of several diseases such as diabetes, colon cancer or heart disease. With radishes, you get a double whammy of disease fighting nutrients.
Radishes also serve as a carb friendly snack for those of you on a carb restricted diet. For a cup serving, it's only 8 carbs.
May God Bless all your Growing Vegetables in your Home Vegetable Garden!!
