Champion Radish

 

Radishes are hardy root vegetables grown for their crisp, colorful, and peppery roots. Champion is a spring variety with bright scarlet with firm, crisp white flesh and a mild flavor. Since they are ready to harvest in a few weeks, plant them multiple times a season. Seeds can be planted in both the spring and the fall, but sowing should be suspended when warm temperatures arrive (70 degrees or higher); this causes radishes to bolt, making them essentially useless. Because radishes mature so quickly, you can sow them anywhere there is an empty space or sow in between rows of other vegetables such as carrots or beets. Radishes also happen to make excellent companion plants to help deter pests from other vegetables. Choose a sunny spot that gets at least six hours of sun a day. If radishes are planted in too much shade, or even where neighboring vegetable plants shade them, they will put all their energy into producing larger leaves. 

For a spring planting, sow seeds 4 to 6 weeks before the last spring frost.
For a fall crop, sow seeds 4 to 6 weeks before the first fall frost. Direct-sow seeds outdoors about 1/2-inch deep and cover loosely with soil. Space 1 inch apart in rows 12 inches apart. Water seeds thoroughly, down to 6 inches deep.
Sow another round of seeds every 10 days or so while weather is still cool for a continuous harvest of radishes in the late spring and early summer. ”Thinning” is probably the most important step in growing radishes. Once the seedlings are 2 inches tall or about a week old, it’s important to thin radishes to three-inch spacings. Crowded radishes do not grow well, and you’ll end up getting small, shriveled, inedible roots.

To thin, just snip the greens at the soil line. The thinnings are edible, so add them to a salad! Or, if thinnings have been carefully extracted with roots, leaves, and stem intact, replant them. Transplants might be a bit stressed, but they should recover. The small round varieties do not tolerate heat as well as the longer types so plant the small types first in early spring before mid-size. In general, we find that smaller radishes are milder in flavor, and the larger varieties are spicier. The biggest mistake gardeners make with spring radishes is leaving them in the ground past their maturity, then they will get tough and taste starchy. Winter radishes, on the other hand, can keep in the ground for a few weeks after they mature, if the weather is cool. Finish the harvest before frost.