White Radish

A gardening frenzy caught on me lately. I would sit in the office and day dream ambitiously (often after lunch!) about transforming my subfertile backyard into a lush, verdant patch of edible greens, fruit orchard and flowers oh glorious flowers everywhere!

As I'm new at gardening, needless to say that there will be many 'first time' plants I'm going to write about in this blog - at least for the next several posts. Like my sunflower and chili plants in my first two posts below, this was also my first time growing white radish.

Before I discuss my white radish planting experience, allow me to mention that I've also had my maiden attempt at growing carrots, last year. It was such a joyful experience and something I'd like to repeat again soon. My carrot post (mutated carrots to be exact!) is on my cooking blog. Click HERE if you wanna read about it. The flowers of carrot plants are just beautiful. If you haven't seen it before, do HOP OVER.

Okay, back to my white radish. As many already know, there are several variety of radish - varies by color, shape and sizes. The variety I've always eaten is the elongated white radish which is also commonly known as daikon. I did some reading on the web prior to planting them and most articles said that radishes are the easiest and fastest to grow - all of about 1 month from sowing to harvesting. I was excited at how fast I could reap the rewards. Seeing pictures on blogs and websites of the roots protruding a few centimetres above the soil truly intrigued me and that really added to my excitement. Infact, I've never seen a root plant that protrudes upwards like white radish does. I've also read that they grow so easily in containers, as long as the containers are deep enough.

So, with all the excitement and anticipation of what I could harvest in a month's time, I embarked by sowing four seeds from a packet of white radish seeds I had bought at the gardening section of Jaya Jusco mall. I sowed them in a paint bucket using black fertilised loose soil I had bought from a nearby nursery. And here is my experience (all of NOT in a month)...

Radish seedlings ~ about 1.5 weeks old

Young plants ~ about 3.5 weeks old

Looking promising! Radish leaves can be eaten, normally stir-fried. These are about 1.3 months old. I took a peep at the roots but there was no sign of radish at all during this stage. Hmmm... So I added some organic fertilizer again and let them be.

After about 2 months, the roots started to show. I was elated!! I curiously wondered how long they were growing beneath. "They must be quite huge" ~ I had thought to myself since the top parts protruded well.

I was looking forward to a huge pot of radish soup, boiled with pork ribs!! Slurppp!!

But that was not to be! I got duped!

Coz all I got was three teeny weeny 'dimensionally challenged' radishes after I dug them out. The ballpoint pen by the side gives you a gauge of their sizes. Nevertheless, it was quite a joyful experience along the way. I brought these home on my trip back to my hometown, bought another radish from the supermarket to add to these three cuties and in the soup pot they went. Although these were small in size but they were really sweet and delicious in taste. I certainly plan to grow more real soon.

Growing these radishes took me about 2.5 months from seed sowing to harvesting - unlike what the articles and information on the seed packet said. But it's okay, the process and experience are quite fun.

I've bought another packet of seeds (different brand) and have sowed 3 seeds which sprouted. Hoping that these future radishes will give me larger yields.

Till then, happy planting!