by Nancy Craig
You don’t think of giving red radishes to your valentine, but what a fun vegetable to grow and share, and it’s much healthier than candy!
My great nieces, Lindsey and Lauren, and I are going to plant radish seeds a couple of ways. First, we are going to grow radishes as microgreens and then we will plant seeds in a “root view” container.
Radishes are the easiest and quickest seeds to plant and harvest as microgreens. We will use a kit for our first try at microgreens, but it is just as easy to repurpose pint containers from the grocery store — for example, reuse the plastic container from cherry tomatoes. It is important to use good potting mix and good quality seeds and to water carefully. After we plant the seeds, we will soon see leaves sprouting that we can cut and eat. For steps on how to grow microgreens, visit organicgardening.com/print/12134.
Radish seeds planted in a special root-view container will take longer to harvest, but the twins will enjoy watching the radish bulbs develop. You can buy root-view kits, but we are going to reuse an orange juice carton to make the special container with a view. Just cut out a section of the carton and use tape to create a clear plastic window, then put in potting mix and plant the seeds.
Radishes come in many colors, but we will plant the bright red ones that look like hearts.
You can get all kinds of wonderful seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange digital catalog — we may try the watermelon radish next! You can find their catalog here: seedsavers.org/onlinestore/radish/Radish-Watermelon.html.
We’ll also try some of the recipes for radishes from the book “Project Garden: A Month-by-Month Guide to Planting, Growing, and Enjoying ALL Your Backyard Has to Offer” by Stacy Tornio.
Enjoy growing and eating healthy plants, and have a happy Valentine’s Day!
P.S. Ken, you can still get me chocolates and red roses!
The Gardening Nana,
Nancy Craig
Nancy loves flower gardening almost as much as she does her great nephews and nieces. Her interest in gardening intensified while living in Holland and was perfected with Master Gardener courses.
