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When I was in the third grade our teacher
gave us radish seeds to start as a class project. I’m sure the whole
purpose of this endeavor was to have them sprout so that the class could
then discuss a bit of botany, enough that our small minds could handle,
never mind the teacher actually thinking we’d harvest a radish. My
radishes did indeed sprout and I gingerly ran home, Dixie cups in hand,
and begged for a portion of my mother’s Begonia beds in which to plant
them. I dumped them rather clumsily into a small hole that I had scooped
out with my hands and proceeded to ignore them until such time as I
thought was appropriate, tugged on the greenery and voila…a radish was
had and shared with the family. That was the last decent root crop I’ve
had in the past 35 years. My first attempt was to grow them indoors,
under lights in cut off milk cartons. In my mind, this was just a larger
version of the Dixie cup experiment. Not thinking it through, I didn’t
realize that I was only going to get one radish per seed and it really
doesn’t make the best use of lighting space to grow radishes indoors
this way. Twelve radishes do not a grand harvest make. Although they did
“bulb up”, they were extremely hot and not nearly the size that the
picture on the seed package had promised. I thought I’d give it a go in
central Indiana where I have lived for the past 5 years. Surely if all
it took to grow a radish was to start it in a Dixie cup and then plop it
into a hole in the ground, I should get a splendid harvest from a well
tilled and tended to garden bed. Yeah, right! My new raised bed with
light, fluffy soil was selected for my radish/carrot bed. Growing them
according to the directions, I interplant the radishes with the carrots
so that I would be able to find my rows easier as the carrot seeds are
miniscule. I thinned the rows as the new leaf growth appeared, then
waited for the sign that my carrots and radishes were forming thick
roots beneath the soil. I waited, and I waited. I scraped away the soil
a bit from the surface so that I could get a better idea of the size of
these beauties. Nothing was there. I waited some more. Eventually, after
more than 30 days after the harvest date indicated on my seed package, I
pulled them up. Pea sized radishes and barely a pencil size carrot. The
following year I planted just radishes, forgetting about carrots
altogether. I had beautiful bushy radish greens and as the weeks went on
I saw more and more of the red root forming on a couple of the radishes.
I saw so much of the root that I would have to say that they simply
heaved out of the soil and before I had a chance to try them, the sow
bugs had started eating them. If only I hadn’t been so greedy and dug
them when I had the chance. I was becoming discouraged but was still
hopeful. The next year, I took the advice of a friend of mine and
planted by the moon. I don’t recall right now when you plant root crops,
but I did it according to the charts. Full moon, new moon, whatever! The
carrots were planted in a different location; up close to the main
garden area so that I could attend to they’re every need. This time I
had added more sand to the area to give better drainage and friability.
Hope springs eternal…these were 60 day carrots planted in mid July and
I’ve yet to harvest one! I’ve decided that life is too short to grow
veggies that are touted to be so easy that an eight year old can grow
them. The failures are far too humiliating and the successes far too
few! Root crops are officially banished from my garden!!
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