by Many people think that growing radishes is a simple matter: plant, water and wait for the harvest. In practice, everything is a little more complicated. This root crop will require a little more of your attention, especially if you want to grow an early harvest.
Agree, after winter you want to pamper your body with vitamins, for example, a fresh salad with greens grown on the windowsill, and environmentally friendly radishes from your own garden. Nothing is impossible! After all, the first harvest of early radishes can be collected already in April.
Features of culture
The optimum soil temperature for planting early varieties of radish in a greenhouse is 10-12°C. Uniform shoots appear at a temperature of 15-20°C.
Radishes can withstand temporary temperature drops to –1-2°C.
How to grow radishes? Let’s look into the intricacies of this issue in order.
Preparing the soil and sowing seeds
Our goal is an April harvest, so we sow the seeds in March and grow radishes only in greenhouse conditions.
You need to take care of the beds in the fall: add 40 g of superphosphate and 15 g of potassium chloride per 1 sq.m. to the soil. Organic matter, for example, a bucket of compost per 1 sq.m., will not hurt poor soil. After adding fertilizer, dig up the soil, level it and leave it until spring.
A few weeks before the expected sowing date, pay attention to the greenhouse: repair the frame, stretch the film. These simple actions will allow the soil to thaw before the sowing time, so that the seeds germinate exactly on time.
Before sowing the seeds, make furrows 3-4 cm deep and water them well.
The most suitable early maturing varieties of radish: 18 days, Saxa, Rubin, Zarya, Early red, Okhotsky, Pink-red with white tip.
To speed up the germination, germinate the seeds. It is not difficult at all: put the seeds in warm water for a few hours, then put them on gauze, cover with a thin cloth and put them in a warm place. As soon as you notice that the seeds have hatched, start sowing. We remind you that by this time you should already have a greenhouse ready and a bed prepared.
Plant the seeds 1 cm deep in the soil at a distance of 5 cm from each other. This way, each plant will receive the necessary amount of light. Add the seeds one by one. Cover them with soil, compact them well – this will speed up germination.
If the weather is quite cold, you can additionally cover the beds with any non-woven material, such as spunbond or lutrasil. Wait for the first shoots to appear after 4-6 days. If necessary, thin out: the distance between plants should be 3-5 cm.
How to water radish
Radishes love moisture. Before the shoots appear, water them often, but not too much (it is best to spray the crops from a spray bottle). When the shoots appear, water the plants more strongly, but less often (once every few days). After watering, be sure to loosen the soil and ventilate the greenhouse so that high humidity does not ruin your early radishes.
Remember: lack of moisture can lead to early bolting of radishes. As a result, they will become tough and tasteless. But excess moisture can lead to cracking of root crops.
How to feed radishes
After thinning the shoots, feed the radish with nitrogen fertilizer, for example, urea (2 tablespoons per 10 liters of water). At the initial stage of growth, plants definitely need nitrogen. If this element is not enough, the radish will have a very poor formation of tops, and the leaves will quickly turn yellow.
At the beginning of root formation, feed the plants with the following solution: 30 g superphosphate and 20 g potassium sulfate per 10 liters of water.
Harvesting and storing radishes
Harvest the root crops selectively: the first to leave the bed should be the ripe radish heads with a diameter of 2,5 cm. Carefully push back the soil around the root crops and pull out the ripe specimens by the tops. Leave the small radishes to ripen, again sprinkling them with soil.
Wash the root vegetables, dry them on paper or a towel and put them in plastic bags without tying them. Store the radishes in the refrigerator in the vegetable compartment.
After harvesting the radish, the freed up space in the greenhouse can be occupied by the main crops (tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, peppers), and the space between the rows can be compacted with intermediate crops (watercress, lettuce and radish, which, by the way, can be grown throughout the season).
So, all your efforts have paid off – the first April harvest has been collected. Now you can actively indulge in spring salads of radishes and fresh greens. But remember about the sense of proportion: it is not recommended to abuse radishes if you have diseases of the digestive organs and thyroid gland.
