Radish maturity test - better sooner than too late
Depending on the variety, you can harvest the first radishes about a month after sowing. After 21 to 28 days, check the tuber size of the plants with the largest leaves every day. All tubers that are 2 to 3 centimeters long are ripe. They shouldn't be left in the ground for more than 6 weeks, otherwise they lose their typical sharp taste, become woody or spongy and burst.
also read
- Sowing radishes is little work and is twice as worthwhile
- Planting radishes - this is how it works in the garden and on the balcony
- You can grow radishes without a green thumb
To try the radish, take the leaves in one hand and the tuber in the other. Then turn and break off leaves. Rinse radishes with cold water. Now comes the bite test. When they taste crisp and hot they are ripe. You can also harvest everyone else with the same tuber size.
Harvest radishes in the late afternoon
Harvesting root vegetables like radishes in the late afternoon guarantees the highest vitamin value and the lowest nitrate content. During the day, radishes store the nitrate stored in the tubers in the plant tissue with the help of sunlight. The nitrate content in the tubers is highest at night and in the morning. Therefore, radishes should be harvested in the afternoon. For the radish as a party snack in the evening or for the salad the next day.
Collect radish seeds yourself for the next year
If you leave furry or woody radishes in the ground, they will form pods after a short time. As soon as the pods turn light brown, the seeds are ripe and can be dried. It's best to keep it in a paper bag. You can sow your own radish seeds next spring. This means that you are independent of buying seeds when sowing radishes.
Tips & Tricks
Harvesting radishes is too much work for you? Dutch engineers spent 5 years developing a radish robot with 90 pneumatic cylinders. This harvests and bundles 4000 bundles of radishes per hour. Exactly as many as 20 harvest workers. It remains to be seen when the first mini radish robots will harvest the radishes for hobby gardeners.
