Black Radish - Season 2011

The first time I tried to grow Round Black Spanish Radish a few years ago. Although I was told to plant in June I put seeds in ground in May and all plants get bolted. 

The last summer (2011) I tried again. This time  I seeded on July 2nd. Besides I also tried August seeding but it was not so good but it looked promising for field option. Our garden has limited opportunity as there are to many trees around and when, the sun is not so high it is not enough  light for good growing due to shading. I tried June seeding in full shade and it is  failed completely. It is not tropical plant it needs the light.

July 2, 2011

August 5, 2011

  

This picture demonstrates that plants were seeded to close

The result was better than before but it would be much better if I did it the right way. Because I seeded to close some plants went bolting soon and I removed them. It brought more light to the left plants and some of them ended up with nice looking root shape and good taste. Noteworthy that in North America is recommended to harvest black radish when roots get a size of the quarter coin while in European countries it is expected to have good apple size.

The following pictures were taken on October 1, 2011. 

As you can see some plants looked great with nice round shape roots.

Others plants  that had less light to grow developed a woody stems. The roots were a little bit hard also  but still good for eating.

Below is an example of good and not so good plants. You can see that the second plant on the background  is trying to shoot up in order to get more light.