Backyard grocery store: love, grow and eat red radish

On By Inese, visual artist, writer and life sciences bloggerIn easy and quick recipes, gardening, green living, health, life

Cold climate is perfect for radish

Maybe you love gardening just as much as I do. Maybe you love fresh vegetables and sprouts?

Maybe you just want to save money while eating top-quality food. Whatever the reason, radishes are great starting plant in the backyard. It grows in quite cold soil and it will grow even when it is almost minus degrees. In fact, radish likes cold climate. Once radish comes up, you can consume also the young leaves since they have the same nutritional value that the vegetable has.You can start radish as soon as the soil is ready to use. It only takes a few weeks and you can already consume it.

Greens and red radish: picturesque and delicious combination

Radish goes well with other early spring greens, for instance green onions or chives. Chives are up as soon as snow melts and the soil has just somewhat warmed up. Chives are also perennial, and you will enjoy them every spring once they are planted. Chives and green onions grow like weeds, no special conditions are required. The only requirement all these plants have is generous watering unless you have many rainy days. Radish will never be at its best quality if it has suffered from dry conditions.

Grow red radish

Great nutrients without much effort

What is the value of radish and greens? Huge. It not only tastes fresh and great, but it is also very low in calories, but very high in minerals and vitamins. Red radish contains vitamins E, A, C, B6, and K, and it is high on antioxidants. Radish has also fiber, zinc, potassium, calcium, iron, phosphorous, magnesium, copper. Young radish has milder taste, overgrown radish turns into fibrous indigestible matter. Therefore, we consume the red radish while bright red and juicy with bright white flesh.

Grow, love and eat red radish

Undeniable health benefits at no cost

Any fresh spring greens, especially absolutely organic greens as from your own garden, will contribute big time to immune system and provide with necessary vitamins and minerals. As I wrote before, each vegetable, each herb comes with its own unique, digestion-friendly complex of beneficial nutrients. Therefore, greens and early vegetables 100% beat the benefits one gets from synthetic and artificial supplements. Plus, they are clean of harmful chemicals and pesticides.

If you live in a large city

I feel sorry for everybody, who cannot keep distance from others during this pandemic. Especially, if your place is in a high rise, there is much less opportunity to have fresh and clean air, fresh (as from garden) vegetables, fruits and herbs. People with balconies can still devote some large pots, plastic bags (large size with holes for air) or boxes for planting herbs, greens and easy to grow vegetables. It depends on many things whether it will turn out as a great undertaking. Container gardens do not take much time. It’s spent mostly on planting and later regular watering.

Use time wisely and go for vegetable gardening

Most people have plenty of time this spring. Why not to go outside, dig up some area, add fresh top soil and seed something good for you? It is a nice exercise, fresh air and good food. Perfect combination!

Radish seeds can be also colored or attached to a tape, but they are not that tiny and quite easy to put in soil. Radish seeds should be spaced right away because it will not like being taken out and replanted.

Extra simple and extra healthy recipes

I like extra simple recipes which save me time and efforts.

Thinly sliced radish is great as topping on bread which you cover with some butter, cottage cheese plus cream and pinch of salt and pepper.

It goes well in any salad which contains lettuce and cucumber, dill and green onion.

You can always add hard boiled and sliced egg.

Love, grow and eat red radish

Extra simple salad of radish with leaves:

10 radishes with leaves, we use just the freshest and smallest; sliced, but radish leaves, dill and green onion are finely chopped, pour over kefir dressing, add 3 quartered hard-boiled eggs on top of mixed salad

All greens and radish salad

Bunch of carefully rinsed and washed chickweed, young dandelion leaves, soaked in strong salt water for 0.5 hours, washed; arugula or lettuce, 6-8 radishes with small, young leaves, dill, green onion, 1 clove garlic, salt, pepper to your liking. We thinly slice radish and finely chop any greens and garlic. Very small leaves do not need any chopping. Stir, pour over kefir, mix of kefir and sour cream or mustard dressing.

I never measure anything and use any variations of ingredients depending on what I have. Basically, one needs to feel what goes with what and use common sense. These recipes are what I would make for us. I haven’t included extra detailed handling instructions because I believe that everybody knows how to make some salad.

Mustard dressing

5 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp mustard, I use Keen’s hot mustard because I like it, but you can replace it with any other you prefer

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp liquid honey

Salt and small bit of paprika powder

Feel free to improvise with radish and any early greens, including weeds.

I do add radish to quickly broiled smoked salmon salad along with cucumber, greens, arugula, dandelion leaves or baby lettuce. Extremely delicious! Use balsamic vinegar dressing.

Broiled smoked salmon salad

Only benefits

That is such a vitamin boost. It will contribute to your immune system which we need right now and leave feeling more energized every time you have eaten it. Early spring greens with radishes will also cost you nothing if you put seeds in soil right now.

Never eat lots of radish since eating huge amounts might irritate stomach. Realistically, never eat anything in large amounts.

Stay safe and healthy!

23 thoughts on “Backyard grocery store: love, grow and eat red radish”

      2. I can imagine!
        I don’ t own a place, but I am even grateful that we always can rent a detached house with whatever backyard it has. I have lost number of gardens I have started in Canada, but digging up one again. This time, it’ s tough because they have simply filled up a pool with rocks and some mix of rough kind of soil. Therefore, I have selected a few small areas which I am able to turn into vegetable and flower beds. I do it every time I move, and recently it’ s been often.
        It’s nice to be always in a great place like your farm.
        I have moved I think some 30 times at least. The easiest was the move across the ocean with 1 suitcase, and it’s getting more difficult every year because of all many hundreds of painting I have.
        I cannot live completely in the countryside, I like being in a town, but I always aim for backyard and we always have.
        I just visited your farm blog and left a comment! Stay in touch!

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks! It’s very inspiring to see these small veggies come up which they have done during the last week. We will have rain for 4 days in a row, radish, green onion and dill like that. Daffodils are blooming, they are such fighters also and can withstand the cold Ontario spring.
      I would not like to turn this into gardening blog, but so it happens with the lockdown and other measures that all one can do is work in their backyard or garden and feel happy about that.

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      1. I must say I was really jealous of you having all that rain, but then, as a beautiful surprise we also had a few days of rain which was just that, a gift from Heaven.
        I hope, I can now get things to grow, before there wasn’t a chance at all. So please cross your fingers for me, I am not as experienced a gardener as you are when it comes to vegetables.

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      2. No worries, vegetables pretty much grow on their own if the weather is favorable.
        I always use common sense with everything and also we can see after a while if some vegetable doesn’t like some type of soil. Most Latvians believe in moon phases,so, plants which have useful parts above the soil are planted when the moon crescent is growing.and root plants when the moon crescent is waning.
        I do plant when it seems appropriate, like before rain is expected and temperature allows for that.
        Some plants totally hate replanting, so, they need to have the correct space right away. Think about how light and shadow will change when the sun gets higher up in the sky.
        I did containers last year because we moved in only by July 1, but I still got a good harvest.
        Vegetables like being watered (not soaked in water) regularly. Cucumbers will be bitter if they suffer from dry conditions, radish won’t grow much if it’s dry. Early spring is good for many things, but not all. We can plant seeds all June and things like dill and parsley, we renew every few weeks.
        We have cold weather again, probably for 2 more weeks, nothing much going on.
        Good luck!

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      3. Thanks for your great advice.
        I have posted a video and a few pictures of our garden today.
        There you can see how organic it is.
        Our fruit garden is fine, except for that I should have done have pruned several fruit trees, but we just don’t have the time at the moment, but even all our wild bushes are giving us a great harvest, year after year.
        The problem is me and watering veggies. That’s always where it goes wrong. Again, I don’t have enough time and when there’s not enough rain…

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Watering, soil and amount of sunlight are the 3 most important factors. I sometimes, too, do not have time to water plants. We used to have large garden like that in Latvia, we had everything from red currant to potatoes, onions, strawberries, apple trees, plum trees and you name it. There are some vegetables which are not that sensitive, but some are very sensitive to lack of water. Good luck!

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      5. thanks for the encouraging words
        now the first greens from the seeds have come up
        I am very happy about that
        how long does it take for the green of the potatoes to come up?
        I can’t remember, it’s been years…
        but I read it should take 2 months before one can harvest the first potatoes

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      6. It’s been some 35 years since I planted potatoes back in Latvia. It takes a while. There are early potato varieties and late potato varieties. We used to plant them on May 8, unless it was still too cold, but usually it wasn’t. It takes about 3 months for potato to reach maturity. Might be a bit less or a bit longer if it’s very dry, very rainy or very cold. It really depends on your seeds and weather. Sometimes, people harvest tiny and small potatoes already,so, it might be some 2.5 months.
        Gardener must have patience.
        Well, our weather is just a joke, again. We had about 2 weeks with minus 3, minus 2 every night. We had a bit of snow yesterday, and it’s cold and breezy today. It looks like it will get warmer after Wednesday. Nothing is growing really.

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    1. We can eat practically any new leaves. New radish leaves, just like radish sprouts are great if you want to waste or use up extra seeds. I have not too many seeds and it’s very difficult to get them now, stores are not ready for online orders.
      If you buy at the store, these leaves are already too old to add to salad. If you grow in the garden, that’s a bit different because they are completely fresh and one can also choose the tiny ones. When carrots come up, we can add to salads some carrot greens also, but the very young ones. I’m sure you know that we can eat beet leaves, but it’s the same, sometimes from the grocery store they’ re completely wilted.
      I do love radish always, it’s very good on bread, I put on butter, smear on cottage cheese (the one they sell in yellow packs, Western Creamery), I also eat a lot of 35% whipping cream, so, I use that and some salt, then top it with radish, green onion and dill. It not only tastes fantastic, it looks like a picture!
      I consume in Canada only the least processed foods and sour cream is frequently a mix of many substances. That’s why I use whipping cream and good quality butter which still isn’t extra good. I’ve never had too much weight, so, I can say that eating everything, but home-cooked and clean doesn’t make one overweight.

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    1. Thanks Sharon for your comment! I already have the second round of radishes ready for consumption.
      We rent a house, so, I have to make a new garden every second year or so. It’s basically from scratch, but good exercise. The only times I have been having only container garden were after surgeries.
      It’s a lot of work and I do gardening in the morning. Later everything else, new jobs, new paintings, whatever.

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