RHS Journals
The Garden
July 2001
Crunch time
Radishes liven up summer salads with their rich red colour, crisp texture and spicy flavour. Sarah Higgens recommends some cultivars for home gardeners
 Click on the image for a larger view and a key to the radishes pictured. Photography and styling copyright Derek St Romaine
For a refreshing start to a summer meal it is hard to beat a dish of radishes served simply with salt and bread and butter. Home-grown radishes can be plucked from the garden at their most crisp and succulent, then trimmed, washed and brought to the table still shining with moisture. An appetising sight, they make a cheerful centrepiece in red and white.
Summer-type radishes can, with protection, be grown all year round and a trial held at RHS Garden Wisley last year tested 31 cultivars as early crops for growing under horticultural fleece. The seeds were sown at the start of March, with a layer of fleece laid loosely over the plots and the edges secured by digging them into the soil. The plants were kept covered for just over five weeks, until mid-April, when they were judged. The entries were required to have the small leaves (‘short tops’) which make them suitable for growing under cover, and were assessed for shape, colour, uniformity and lack of pithiness.The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) was given to six cultivars (click here for list), some round, others cylindrical; all were red. Most commercial breeding is concentrated on the search for the ‘ideal’ spherical, bright red radish with a fine tapering tail, and leaves that snap off easily. However, in the trial there were colour variations, including long ‘White Breakfast’ 10 and round, red ‘Sparkler’ 4 with a pronounced white base. There was also a gold radish 9 raised by Dutch seed company K Sahin, Zaden, as yet un-named. Although a novelty in the kitchen garden, the judges felt that it had a relatively coarse tail and was not a fast grower.Cultivation
Any of the cultivars tested in the trial can be grown in the open ground as well as under cover: ‘Marabelle’ 1 has an AGM for both purposes. Radishes are easy to grow but for crunchy roots that are not too strong in flavour they need to develop quickly, ideally in a light, rich, well-drained soil manured for a previous crop. An open situation is best, although radishes in light shade, such as that cast by surrounding crops, are less likely to bolt in the height of summer.Sow thinly, one seed every 2.5cm (1in), in seed drills 2.5cm (1in) deep, in rows 10–15cm (4–6in) apart. Keep well weeded and water regularly in dry weather. No protection is needed during summer until mid-September, but a cover of fleece can prevent damage from pigeons and flea beetles (which eat round holes into the leaves). The roots are ready for pulling when about 2.5cm (1in) across; leave them in the ground for longer and they will turn unpalatably woody.The time from sowing to harvesting can be as little as three weeks, and it is this speedy growth which makes radishes so useful in the vegetable garden. Being members of the cabbage family (Cruciferae), they are usually grouped in a crop rotation system with other brassicas, such as cauliflowers, turnips and broccoli. Ground lying idle where a few lettuces have been cut, or which is waiting until early August for transplanted kales or a sowing of spring cabbages can be used for a quick catch crop of radishes. Page 1 | Page 2 Sarah Higgens is a freelance horticultural journalist
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