Purple Plum Radishes
I harvested my first batch of ‘Purple Plum’ radishes this evening from the rooftop garden. I’m growing them in an old wine crate alongside greens.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly what I planted since I wrote on the tags with non-permanant ink and it washed off after the first rain (I have several different lettuce and greens seed packets so it’s not easy to identify). However, I can say for certain that the radishes (back row) are ‘Purple Plum’, the front row is orach (not yet germinated), and there are ‘Rouge d’ Hiver’, and ‘Oakleaf’ lettuce seedlings in there.
May 27th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
The ‘Purple Plum’ radish picture makes me think of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit. Very pretty colored radish!
I’ve been wondering how radishes would do in a container such as your wine crate and I can now see that I shouldn’t have a problem. Thanks!
May 27th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Hey Taryn: This variety is short so a good choice for a shallow container. My crate is about 7 inches tall. The key is to keep it consistently moist. Too much drought will make for woody and hot radishes.
May 28th, 2006 at 2:35 am
Actually radishes grow really well in containers, don’t they! I’ve even grown carrots in containers before too, mind you they were the short stubby variety so there’d be room for them…
I’m worried about my lettuce though, it should’ve sprouted by now, but it’s been cold. I’ve got to get eating some more spinach so I can finish a container and use it as a cloche! Your stuff is all coming along so nicely, I’m having total container-garden envy!
May 28th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Yay, Gayla! You told me once you didn’t have any luck with radishes. Look at you now.
May 28th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
We dug into our second batch of radishes today (I’m doing the square foot thing, so we’re on square two of radishes now). They’ve been great! So far I’ve had awesome success with them, yeilding 16 per square as planted. And as an added bonus my 9 year old step-daughter loves them to bits and so gets very excited about eating them straight from the garden (rinsed off with the hose) making the task of including veggies in her diet a breeze. I’m now just a bit concerned that I haven’t been starting them often enough to keep up with her radish habit, so am hoping my next few rounds might come to fruition a bit quicker with the warmer weather (should that ever actually materialize).
May 31st, 2006 at 10:28 am
We’ve got the opposite problem here… we’re experiencing the hottest weather in May that I can recall… I’m afraid my radish and greens crops may be cut short this year
June 2nd, 2006 at 7:42 am
I harvested my first radish…..cherry belle, this morning, I am doing squarefoot gardening. Planted two squares with radishes, cause I thought it had a late start. They are doing great. Here is the South I start my fall garden late August, am already planning my fall garden. Will be making some raw sprouted soup for breakfast, with radishes being the new addition. Can I eat, as in salads or soups, my radish tops? They look too good to put in the compost.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm
[…] And then low and behold, just last year I managed to grow my first crop of good container-grown radishes! And today, for a second year running, I have harvested my first tasty, crisp, not-at-all-woody container-grown radishes of the season. Woot! I’ve come to think that my radish mistake probably came down to my own insanely stubborn insistance on growing a variety that just couldn’t take the extra heat and drought on the deck. Again this was one of those instances where I KNEW what I should have been growing and had even appropriately advised many aspiring radish growers while stubbornly soldiering on in the wrong direction in my own garden. […]