Radish Grex

The radish grex were a combination of Daikon, breakfast radish, and winter radish.

How did they grow for you?

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I scattered half of this on my south slope among the berries, atop the chicken-bedding-over-cardboard mulch I put down last year, and mixed with lettuce, calendula, various brassicas, etc. Waiting for them to come up still. We’re still quite frosty at night and very cool some days, but this is the warmest part of my property so I’m hoping for earlies.

In my garden radishes are one of the easiest crops I’ve ever worked with. Last fall I planted a new kind I got from Baker Creek, it’s a big white daikon that has smooth, fuzz-less leaves but it didn’t overwinter. I like that fuzz-less trait because it makes the leaves more palatable. I also added rat tail, since I view the seed pods as the harvest more so than the roots, I don’t know why I didn’t add them in years ago.

A month or so ago I planted some of each along with some of mine to properly mix them all up, but I isolated that patch a little in case there is something I don’t like about the new ones.

I also had my first ever winter survivor radishes, probably because I planted some fall radishes from Sandhill Preservation. Even if they are compatible, I’m not sure I can mix them in with mine because they are already showing signs of getting ready to bloom, while the spring planted ones are going to take a bit longer. Are the fall and winter radishes the same thing?

Someone, somewhere on another forum, years ago said if you mix up radishes the roots will degrade into woody nasty things. I didn’t really care if they did because I like the pods, but it’s been years, and this is the kind of roots mine make. *IF they volunteer at the appropriate time to be at this stage when the weather turns cold in the fall or early winter. I harvest right before the first killing freeze and they are mild and delicious.

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I find they become woody through age and/or heat. Some become pithy just from age. These are probably qualities that can be reduced with breeding but I find I have enough to toss any that are too woody or inedible. Sometimes you can tell if they’re pithy by pressing hard on them. If they give easily I find they’re pithy inside.

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Yea, I suspect so. One like that in the picture harvested in July would probably be pretty nasty, but late October is another story. Actually, one like that would never exist here in July, too hot and dry for it. That they turned out like in fall/winter was a nice little surprise since all I really wanted was tasty seed pods and soil improvement from letting the roots rot in place.

Yesterday I planted the Pinetree Garden Seeds Radish Mix.

“This is a mixture of most of the early maturing radishes we sell, plus a few surprises. You will get a wide selection of shapes and colors, plus a somewhat longer span of maturation, all from the same planting.”

I’m intending to grow seed for next year’s landrace seed swap.

Oh bother. They sell an F1 radish. I guess I get to examine each plant for normal looking anthers.

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Looks like they only offer a couple of round red F1s. You might be able to identify the suspects and cull them or only inspect the flowers on those instead of all the plants.

Seems like I read somewhere that people take these brassica seed pods and put them in a pillow case. Then jump up and down on them to bust them out. Does that sound right?

If it’s that easy then I’ll try that if I can get them dry enough. I’ve got nearly 10 gallons of seed pods so I considered being lazy and just planting the seed pods in a couple months.

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I didn’t find obviously male-sterile plants in the Pinetree Garden Seeds mix.

Seeds in pillowcases works great for threshing seeds. Radish pods shatter with more difficulty than most any species I grow, but lots of seed gets released/

If you have a lot of seed, shake the pillowcase a little and plant the seeds that fall out easily. Selection for easy threshing.

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Thanks, both of you. Honestly I’m not gonna select for easy threshing for now, as that doesn’t matter much to me. It will prevent me from sharing seeds with anyone who wants perfectly clean seed, but oh well. I might even select the opposite way and keep only pods that stay intact. Less work for me.

I tilled under my radish patch a few weeks ago after I collected all the pods I could find and a new volunteer patch came up real thick, looking much better than the first generation patch. I noticed a lot of sprouts from the seed pods because they looked like if a peanut was buried with 3 or 4 peanuts per pod. Fine with me. Radishes have really impressed me as a crop.

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I harvested the Pinetree radish seeds a week ago. Threshed them today. Got about 2 ounces of seed to contribute to this winter’s seed swap.

I love getting a picture of conditions in other places to compare. I harvested radish seed at least a month and a half ago. Volunteers from seeds that got lost are as big as eight inches and hopefully will grow nice flower stalks and buds to eat.

I’m hopeful too that some that sprouted later and that I planted later might look like this about November or so.

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Can we put Radish (Raphanus spp.) x Kale (Brassica spp.) Hybrids into the Mix? (Brassicoraphanus spp.)

Also what about a Radish Landrace/Grex for the Leaves & Flowers? I’ve never enjoyed Radish roots

How do you eat them? I dislike them raw and steam or boil them until soft. They go well in clear broth soups. They become very mild and soak up the flavor of the broth while still bringing nuanced sweet, earthy flavors to it. There’s a lot of variation in root texture and taste I find depending on the type.

My experience has been only with grocery store radish, the small roundish red ones. Never tasted good raw (Since that’s how I’ve always eaten them) but the greens were always the best tasting part. I eat the greens raw until the spice is too hot, then I put the rest in a pot a boil em. Very delicious. Never tried Radish flowers since I never saw them at a Grocery Store nor have I found wild radishes to try them with yet (Hence why I planted some in a forest this year).
Also was hoping to try the radish pods, everybody on YouTube said they was good.

Again this year, the Fukuoka grab bag will split out a separate radish grex.

So far, Holly, Lowell, and Debbie have sent in seeds. Also, I grew out the Pinetree Garden Seed Radish mix and harvested about two ounces of seed. So the genetic diversity pleases me a lot.

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Heck yeah! I’ve been harvesting from this year’s seed grown out this fall. Lots of variety in shape with most tending towards daikon which I prefer. The black radishes seem to take longer to mature, but they’re worth it. Adding new daikon types and some green and red radishes this year to grow out and let cross. I love radishes and the ducks love radish greens.

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I harvested a bunch. I’ll send some in if you’re interested, I couldn’t find a radish category on the website to send to. I didn’t taste any of them so no promises there but it was a bunch of different radishes I planted I think mostly from southern exposure seed exchange.

You may send seeds to me if done this week.
PO Box 538, Paradise, Utah 84328