It’s daikon season! Ho ho ho…
There is an adage in China, “Eating pungent radish and drinking hot tea, let the starved doctors beg on their knees.” This seems a bit drastic for me since I don’t want to see a bunch of hungry doctors panhandling in Basin Park, so how about, “A radish a day keeps the doctor away.”
Radishes enjoy a prestige in Asian cuisine that has faded in our hemisphere, but maybe there are signs of a radish re-awakening. Word is out they are for nutrition what Bela Fleck is for banjo. In the past two decades, American seed catalogs have begun to offer varieties beyond little red and white ball shapes and long, slender white icicles. It’s not just a fad that winter radishes are making a comeback.
Summer radishes, which are the ones we usually see in markets and grocery stores, mature in 30-45 days. Winter radishes take longer to mature, and a daikon, for example, can be four inches in diameter and almost two feet long.
Any gardener in our area who does not already have winter radish seeds in the ground should not wait much longer. A radish bed needs all the goodness you can gather – compost, aged manure, wood ashes, leaf mulch and good intentions. Dig deep and get the rocks out because these radishes might get bigger than you expect. Eventually, a modest layer of mulch will keep weeds out and help protect against frost damage, but you don’t want the soil to be too moist or the radishes will suffer.
Winter radishes also require more room, so thin seedlings accordingly.
I was able to find three varieties of winter radish seeds locally, and, of course, there are seed companies online with many more. Three typical varieties offered online are the watermelon radish which has red flesh on the inside, the Black Spanish radish, and several long, white daikons. However, intrepid explorers can find many others to choose from. Korean and Indian seed companies offer several plump, long white winter varieties, plus purple and red ones for both summer and winter.
Some varieties will remain fresh in the ground after a frost, and they keep for weeks in cool storage. Whereas it is easy to have too many summer radishes at one time, a plethora of winter radishes will remain fresh and usable for a while.
Watermelon radishes can get as big as a baseball. The skin is a greenish-white with magenta-pink flesh inside. They are mostly round but taper at the bottom end.
Black Spanish radishes are a flattened round shape with (guess what?) black exterior and a crispy white interior. They can get as big as a softball, spicier than most winter radishes and they reportedly go well with cheese and cold beer. Once harvested, they store well in sand or sawdust at temperatures just above freezing. They reportedly handle cold temperatures better than other varieties.
Daikons might be the variety most often associated with Japanese cuisine. The word daikon comes from two Japanese words meaning large and root. They are usually white, long, plump and not as spicy as summer radishes, but there is a giant round variety which can reach 60 pounds. Daikons are used in every possible way in Asian cuisine.
China Rose radishes are bulbous striking pink roots five inches long. The Shawo Fruit radish from northern China is reportedly sweet enough to be a fruit substitute. It looks like a lime green sausage and will keep for weeks in cold storage.
Being a cruciferous vegetable, radishes are a reliable source of minerals and vitamins. They are a digestion aid, blood purifier, detoxifier for internal organs, and they can slow down reproduction of cancerous cells.
Plus, they are easy to grow for starving doctors.