Every gardener wants to grow this bright vegetable on his land as early as possible. Therefore, the question of when and how best to plant radishes in order to get the first harvest faster will be relevant for many.
There are two options for planting radishes: in the greenhouse and in the open field. What method will allow you to get these juicy vegetables to the table as early as possible, we will figure it out.
When planting early radishes, everything is important: the type of radish, the ambient temperature, the quality of the planting material, whether the soil is suitable for this vegetable, the planting site. And in such a matter, tips from experienced gardeners are important, who have been using various innovative ideas for more than one year to get a bountiful and early harvest.
Which soil is best for growing?
A place for growing early radish is best prepare in advance from the autumn period... This is due to the fact that this root crop does not like fresh cow dung introduced into the soil, which, nevertheless, is the best environmentally friendly fertilizer.
Radish loves to grow in loose and moist soils, so the area set aside for this crop must be well dug up, breaking all large clods of earth. Then add rotted manure in the proportion of one bucket per square meter of the desired area. Then flatten all this and wait for the spring period for the first crops of early varieties.
Greenhouse-grown radish
Of course, it is best to grow the first harvest of radishes in a glass or foil greenhouse, since in a closed room, unexpected frosts, hail and other weather phenomena cannot damage early seedlings.
To correctly determine the landing time, need to know soil temperature, which should warm up to at least twelve degrees. This temperature is suitable for greenhouse cultivation as well as for early harvest outdoors. Typically, this temperature is characteristic of early April, when the day is already long enough to warm the soil with the first rays of the sun.
If the greenhouse is glass, then it gives the owners a minimum of trouble with such a vegetable as a radish. On a warm day, it is better to open the film greenhouse completely, and close the structure tightly at night so that unexpected frosts do not interfere with the growth of fruits. When the day becomes hot enough and the average temperature is close to twenty-five degrees, the foil greenhouse will not need to be closed for the night period.
How to grow early radishes outdoors?
As well as in the greenhouse version of growing radishes, you need to wait for the desired ground temperature in order to proceed to planting prepared seeds. Surface only warms up to twelve degrees, you can safely plant. If you do not wait for such a temperature and plant the seeds in cold soil, the planting material will simply die.
But cultivation in open ground involves constant monitoring of the weather regime and temperature changes, which are so frequent in the spring. And you must always be prepared for the spring frosts, which so often happen.
What are the best radish varieties for early sowing?
Experienced gardeners have identified four varieties of radish, which are the first able to provide yields, this is:
- "18 days".
- "Heat".
- "French breakfast".
- "Carmen".
Growing radish varieties "18 days" has long been familiar to everyone who has long been engaged in the cultivation of garden crops. This name speaks for itself and does not need additional advertising. The fruit of this variety grows elongated with a white tail. The approximate weight of the radish is seventeen grams. If all the rules for growing radishes are followed, then the fruits can be obtained eighteen days after the vegetable rises in the garden.
The "Heat" variety can give result in the same eighteen days... But the period can stretch up to twenty days from the first shoots. The shape of the fruit is round.
Many people are familiar with the “French breakfast” variety, which is easily recognizable by its elongated fruit with a white tip. This variety is also early and it can please its gardeners with the first radishes in twenty-one days.
The "Carmen" variety can please with its rounded fruits already on the twentieth day after the first shoots.
Later varieties include:
- "Cardinal".
- The Red Giant.
The Cardinal variety cannot boast of a quick result like the previous varieties. You can harvest collect on the twenty-fifth day, after the first shoots noticed. But this variety has an advantage that is important to many gardeners. He is in no hurry to throw out the arrow with flowers, this is important so that he can grow a large fruit without losing the quality of the product.
As the name implies, the "Red Giant" can surprise you with the size of its fruits. For a period of thirty days, you can grow a radish of one hundred and fifty grams of weight each.
As experienced gardeners advise, radish varieties that have a white edge should not stay in the ground much longer than the period indicated on the package. Such a fruit may lose its inherent taste, and moreover, it may develop hollowness.
How to plant seeds?
Radish seeds are very small, so it is not easy to get used to planting so that nothing interferes with the growth of the fruit. Of course, after germination, you can thin out the culture, but this uneconomical landing option... In addition, young roots of neighboring plants can be damaged, which will delay their growth.
We water the garden bed prepared in the fall with plenty of water and make shallow holes with a maximum depth of one centimeter. As practice shows, if the seeds are planted deeper, the radish fruit will be subject to deformation during the growth process.
Planting seeds is better at a distance of five centimeters from each other, dropping each seed separately. Experienced gardeners, on the other hand, prepare the material for planting on winter evenings by sticking the seeds on strips of toilet paper. It is a pleasure to plant with such blanks in the spring. It will be optimal to retreat between the rows at least ten centimeters so that it is convenient to handle the grown rustic. Planted rows need to be covered with earth and tamped a little. The better the seeds are in contact with the soil, the faster you can wait for the first shoots.
If the planting of radishes occurs in April, then from five in the evening it will be better to cover the garden with a film, which must be removed in the morning. Such conditions will allow you to see the first shoots in three days.
How to care for radish beds?
So that the radish grows quickly and the first shoots do not die, it is impossible to allow the top layer of the earth to be covered with a crust. Therefore, planted beds need water every day, unless, of course, during this period nature itself does not irrigate the earth with rains. Removing weeds and loosening the soil should also be done regularly. It will be useful to feed young shoots. This can be done by laying out peat or humus in a two-centimeter layer near the planted rows.
Radish very hygrophilous culture... Its growth and taste are directly dependent on soil moisture. The ideal balance is considered to be eighty percent soil moisture. If you do not observe these proportions, you can get not a juicy, crispy radish, but a bitter inedible fruit.With hot temperatures and insufficient watering, the fruit will not form at all, and the plant will throw out an arrow with flowers. If the bed is watered unevenly, the fruit will grow and crack.
Radish is the vegetable that everyone loves to crunch, in a spring salad and which is easy to grow with your own hands if you have even a small piece of land. But in order to grow the crop in a short period, you have to work hard and follow all the advice of experienced gardeners, which were described in this article.
