How to Grow a TON of Radishes in Almost No Space

Radishes are one of the fastest, easiest.

Plants to grow in the garden. But what if I told you that I think most people are growing them wrong?

In this video, I'm going to show.

You my favorite way to grow radishes, with a few simple tricks that most gardeners don't even know about. Radishes are in the brassica family, which we usually associate just with greens, things like kale and broccoli and cauliflower. But they're most closely like a rain arugula. Arugula is also in the brassica family, and it grows up super fast from seed, and radish does the same. The key difference, obviously, between arugula and radish is that we're typically growing radish for the root, whereas we're growing the arugula for the leaf. The key thing to remember about radishes, just like all the other brassicas, is they love the cool weather. They don't mind it when the temps are in the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, and they even can tolerate frost. Frost radishes need to be growing when it's not too hot outside. This means for most of us, they're going to be growing in the spring, and in the fall, if you're in a warmer place, they're going to grow all winter long. Radishes are going to do best when you plant the seed directly in the soil. You don't want to start radishes indoors or ever, ever, ever buy radish plants from the store. They do not transplant well. And these roots, they need to be directly in the soil from the start. Most people plant radishes this way. Package of seed, they get one garden bed and they toss out all their radish seeds at one time. Now, the way I like to do it is totally different, and I talk about this in my book, Leaves, Roots and Fruit. I plant radishes not all alone, but in combination with leafy greens and with fruiting plants. I believe that leaves, roots and fruit, they're all supposed to grow together in one bed, and I use radishes as the root part of that combination in a couple of my beds each and every season. So in this raised bed, I'm going to be growing so many other things than radishes, but I'm still going to get a ton of radishes.

The trick with growing radishes is simply.

To create a little trough right alongside the edge of your bed and then plant your radish seeds right in there. So I'm going to take this planting trowel. And I'm just going to make myself a little trench right alongside the edge of the bed.

So your trough doesn't need to be very deep, just about one or two inches.

And then this is where you're going to plant your radish seeds. So I'll have fruiting plants growing up the trellis. I'll have lots of leafy greens growing that I can harvest from all the time.

And then these radishes are just going.

To be kind of hanging out and doing their thing right along this otherwise unused edge of the garden space to plant my radish seeds.

And don't you love these radishes?

These are my absolute favorite French breakfast. Oh, my gosh. And we just got this fun gardenary packaging. I love it. So we're going to put some radish seeds right in our hand like this, and simply drop them into the trough. So you want to grow radishes about 2 inches apart.

And the way I do it is.

Just literally picturing two fingers between each seed. You can use a seed spacing ruler to help you out with this, but we're moving fast here today, and I want to show you just how quickly you can do it, literally by singling them out. Radish seeds are one of those. You can see they're like little pebbles, and they're pretty easy to grab with your hands.

Now, in about 40 to 45 days, when you come back to check, the radish roots will have pushed themselves out of the soil.

You're going to see the plant doing what we call shouldering, and that's when.

The radish is literally screaming at you, please, please harvest me. You want to harvest the most mature radish roots first and let the ones that needed a little bit of more.

Space, a little bit more time have.

That in the garden. And here's the secret to getting more out of your space.

Each and every time you pull a.

Radish out of the garden, simply take your same seed packet and put a new seed right in its place. This allows you to get another harvest of radishes in another month or so. So that's the way I grow radishes.

Now, remember way back at the beginning.

Of this video, we talked about how most gardeners plant radishes. Well, here's why I think you should.

Choose my way instead.

The other way gives you 45 days of waiting every single day. With just radish seeds in one bed, you're going to be doing a ton.

Of watering, because all You've got are.

A bunch of seeds and soil. You're also going to be doing some.

Weeding because all those blank spaces between.

All those radish seeds, there's probably going to be some weeds that grow up. And then at the end of the 45 days, guess what? You get a ton of of radishes. Now, while it may make a great photo for Instagram, I just don't know what to do with a ton of radishes all at once.

With my method, you're not going to.

Be doing a lot of watering because the rest of your bed is covered with flowers and herbs and peas and greens. You're also not going to be doing.

Any weeding because all the spaces in.

Your garden, they're taken up by other plants.

Your seeds are just going to be.

Right here doing their thing, growing alongside all your other plants. And starting at day 30, 35, you can start harvesting a few little radishes. Day 40, day 45, you can harvest a few more. And then because you succession plant, because you added more seeds as you harvest in another 30 or 40 days, you'll get some more radishes. But you won't just have radishes. You'll have lettuces, you'll have flowers, you'll have herbs, and you'll have peas, too. And I don't know about you, but I think variety is the spirit spice of life. And I want a couple of other things alongside my radishes. Now, my quick tip on doubling your harvest from your radishes when you're growing them, my way is to enjoy the greens along the way. So when we get radishes from the grocery store, the greens on there, they're gross, right? Because they've been, like, trucked all over the country to get to our grocery store shelf. And the last thing you want to eat is that that gross grain on your radish. But the greens on your radishes in your garden, they're totally different. They're fresh, they're delicious. And remember how we compared radishes to arugula? They're in the same family and they even have similar flavor. So you can actually use the greens on your radishes like a salad green in the same way you would arugula. This gives you double the harvest from each and every plant, because you'll get salad greens from the tops as the roots start to grow. And then when you harvest the full plant, you'll get the roots, too. I'm going to go plant some more radish seeds.

Now.

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