The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Anke on September 16, 2020, 05:57:57 pm
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I every so often binge-watch Huw Richards on youtube.... he mentioned in one of his videos that he likes to keep some of his radishes on to flowering/seed setting and eats the seed pods - I was intrigued and left some of my radishes to go to flower.... and I have to say the seed pods taste amazing - small but nice, crunchy and quite spicy. Only problem is... very few of the plants set seed, despite loads of flowers... my question is: Does anyone do this with their radishes and if yes, have you found a particular good seed-setting variety to grow? Are early ones better than mid-summer sown ones (as were mine). I am keen to grow enough for a funky ferment next year...
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It may be that you had poor seed set as a result of pollen beetles eating the pollen rather than radish variety - we certainly have problems setting seed from rocket in mid summer for this reason. Try sowing at different times to see if this can help.
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Yes, I will do a more structured experiment next year, lack of pollinating insects (or eating of the pollen) may well be an issue....
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@Anke I have some radishes at this stage - are you eating the green pods or waiting till they go brown?
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Thomson&Morgan used to sell a variety specifically for eating the pods, which were larger than normal radish seed pods. I think it might have been called Munchen Bier (apologies for the lack of an umlaut - I don't know how to make my keyboard spit one out) I didn't find them any superior to normal radish pods. I let a patch go to seed this year too, but only a couple of plants actually set seed at all, so I let them mature and sprinkle themselves around - my idea of perennials ;D
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@Anke I have some radishes at this stage - are you eating the green pods or waiting till they go brown?
No, you eat them green. Just a wee snack here, not many have set seeds, though the bees and other insects are very busy in there just now.
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Thomson&Morgan used to sell a variety specifically for eating the pods, which were larger than normal radish seed pods. I think it might have been called Munchen Bier (apologies for the lack of an umlaut - I don't know how to make my keyboard spit one out) I didn't find them any superior to normal radish pods. I let a patch go to seed this year too, but only a couple of plants actually set seed at all, so I let them mature and sprinkle themselves around - my idea of perennials ;D
Thanks, I have checked München Bier out, will give them a try next spring. (German keyboard has "Umlauts" on its main set of keys....)