Hi All,
Several on my radishes have developed 12 to 18" stocks with white flowers on the ends. (No they are not weeds, I matched all their leaves to the other radishes next to them.)
Do I need to cut them off as I do scapes? Any words of wisdom?
Many thanks,
-T
They are "Bolting," i.e. going to seed, and the roots will have turned very hot and tough. The good news is that the immature green seed pods are delicious stir-fried. There are actually varieties bred for this use.
So, pull them out?
Yup!
what's wrong with free radish seeds? :) gives the bees and other insects something to feed upon.
let them ripen, harvest and plant again...
also, consider it free organic material. do you need that space for another crop? if no, let it ride.
songbird
Okay, but I want to eat the radishes. Let some seed? Eat the rest?
Why are they seeding so quick? There is no sign of a radish under them yet.
Some radishes never set a good eating root. I usually pull them and use them for compost. Some folks like the leaves and they can add some tang to salads. It is easy to recognize the bum ones by feeling just below the surface while you are harvesting the ones that are setting a good root.
And some will bolt fast - happens. I have usually found that temperature-excessive heat - can push some over the edge.
The nice thing is that radish seed is about as cheap as it gets, keeps viability for years is stored cool and dry and you can have repeated crops during the season for pennies. We've just planted a 3rd crop here in NJ.
Basically, I buy radish seed (or most of my seeds, actually) at end of season and store them. I do keep pepper and tomato seeds from fruits I grow and at the end of the season, I let these fruits ripen and drop naturally. I have dozens and dozens of volunteers that come up the next spring and get pretty terrific results and a few surprises that way, too.
I've one type of cherry tomato - it is a small globe with a pointy end and wondrous flavor, that has grown as a volunteer in my garden for well over a decade. I do keep aside some seed just in case, but volunteers, root cuttings, accidental crosses can be a real delight for the gardener if one has time for them.
T wrote: ...
replant and use a shade cloth, but i suspect it may just be too hot now for them.
try a few seeds/pods. i recall they are sorta peppery. i don't grow them here as we don't eat them, but i do grow the daikon radishes instead. which i also don't eat, but i like the sprouts and as a cover crop and to help bust a root down through the clay.
i have a nice crop of seeds ripening now.
some bolt from the heat. they are more of a cool weather crop like most plants from that family.
songbird
I just did. None of them had a radish under them.
So, just some do that and other develop fat roots?
Well, it makes room. It is crowed in there.
I think every radish I ever planted bolted when the weather got warm.
Maybe I should plant them sooner? Do yours tolerate a freeze or two in the spring?
-T
This is a lot milder / nicer group that the other one we usually talk on. :-)
In our climate we get about a 50/50 harvest of radishes. Our daily temp this month is about 90-95 temperatures but we only grow radishes in the winter. Mostly depends on daily temps, soft soil, etc. We grow our veggies in above ground beds with a mixture of several types of soil including compost, composted cow manure helps too.
This year we had two back to back days of 21F in January and this time of year we get up to 100 degrees heat occasionally. It all depends on the weather. At our previous home we had deep soil from hundreds of years of detritus and a few shade trees and our crops were very large most of the time. This stuff is a little bit of sand on gumbo clay so we did the raised beds. The beds are in need of being redone so we may have no garden this fall.
George
Same here. We had a small garden in Saudi Arabia and we put a black screen type of cloth over our small garden inside a wall garden. We did well with that garden, made of desert sand and lots of cow manure and compost but it was very small. Temps then were often above 100F but the shade protected the garden.
I may have to put shade cloth over the raised beds as our temps are getting higher now.
George
Hi T!
I usually plant them as early as I can and if we have a light freeze I don't worry about them. I have some raised beds that I put a short pvc cold frame over it and cover it with clear plastic. If the plastic is raised for ventilation, I won't lower it if it freezes because it's usually enough protection to keep the tops from being damaged. Plus, they really like the cold weather.
It is! I'm hoping someone has an answer about my Mini Fuchsias!
My in-laws lived there for a couple of years while my father-in-law did some contract work there.
My raised bed are aligned North/South, so when the one on the far west gets grown up with bean vines and tomato vines it shades other parts of the garden from the extreme summer heat. We've thought about putting up some shade cloth, but haven't quite gotten that far, yet.
What all are you growing?
Mostly vegetables for the table. Unfortunately we had two back to back hard freezes in January and half our fig tree froze off, all the blooms on the pear tree dropped, the kumquat tree lost its blooms but they did come back a few months later. We may get some kumquat fruit but no figs or pears to speak of. The raised bed gardens survived but they were heavily covered with old sheets and plastic. We have gotten very few tomatoes, lots of sweet peppers, hardly any green beans, etc. We went from heavy freezing to, now, temps in the mid-nineties. The only thing that is growing well is the grass, go figure. Madam is playing in the backyard now and needs to come in out of the sun. The dawg is napping on the couch in my office and I just got up from a nice nap. When you're in your late seventies it's okay to take naps.
George, thinking about lunch and some lemonade
My fig tree died back to the ground again this past winter, but it came back again and has some figs on it. I had 2 kumquat potted trees and they ended up dying.
This year I didn't plant anything in my raised beds that I set up as a cold frame that I can cover. Last year, though, I grew radishes and beets in it over the winter and by spring they were finally making some edible roots.
I try not to take naps during the day because it, sometimes, affects me being able to sleep at night. There is the occasional afternoon blood sugar drop that makes me sleepy and sometimes I'll lay down and sleep for a little while, then.
Hope all is going nicely for your 4th of July holiday!
We're waiting for the six cops in the neighborhood to start setting off very loud and large fireworks. Texas law states that fireworks can be fired off on certain holidays, meaning most holidays. If it is a gated community the leaders there can ban fireworks. Those of us who have county streets have to hear all the noise but little color. Our dog has to wear earmuffs for holidays or it turns her into a screaming dog. I'm partially deaf from many years of working in loud chemical plants and hunting and being a gunsmith too. Even if you wear ear protection the noises still affect you. My wife gets upset when I ask her to speak louder but that's the only way to hear her. I have hearing aids but I hate the darned things, make my ears itch and sometimes they get loud. Ear doc tried to get me to by $3K of hearing aids that are invisible but I would rather not blow that much money just to hear something that I don't care about. Our mid-fifties daughter is now wearing hearing aids and she's always been a teacher and principal. I guess taking her hunting and target practice may have been part of it but she also had measles as a child so that could be it. Wish it would rain, our water meter is spinning like crazy.
Had a nice lunch and am still drinking lemonade, trying to get off of soda too.
George
Our collie can't stand the fireworks noise, either. I have to trick her into going outside and raise my voice and say, "Oh!! is THAT a squirrel??" Then she comes running to the door and practically has a fit getting out the doggie door!
I wear hearing aids, too. Back when I was a teen I had a severe ear infection in both ears, so bad, both of them swelled closed. It took a week of seeing the Dr. every day for him to treat it and clean them out before he saw my ear drums.
Fast forward, a few years ago I had my hearing tested, and the Dr. said there are some people who lose a little hearing as they get older, but, don't really need hearing aids, and then there's YOU!
I was told that I have profound to severe hearing loss, and I didn't know it until she told me. Evidently, since I was a teen when I lost that portion of my hearing, my brain still knew what words sounded like, so it would automatically fill in the blanks of words even though I wasn't actually hearing those sounds. I wear the small aids that others can't really see unless they look behind my ears and see the tiny computer attached to the invisible wire/speaker that goes into the ear canal.
The first day I had the hearing aids, I drove home from the Dr's office and parked in my driveway, got out, and stopped dead in my tracks. I could hearing hundreds of birds singing. Previous to that I might have heard a few singing that were close by, but, this time it was like a symphony. It was like all of a sudden hearing in high definition.
Even with the aids, I may not catch everything people say, and if there is background noise (which I'm told is the same level of the tones I can't distinguish), it's really difficult to understand what people are saying to me. I can read lips some, but only if I have some sound to go with it and context.
I just finished making deviled eggs for when the kids come over tonight. The home made choc chip ice cream is ripened and now in the freezer, and the bbq chicken and baked beans are done, too. We got everything done last night, except for the deviled eggs, which I usually make a few hours before everyone comes over.
Same temp here. So far only about 8 have bolted.
When do you plant?
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