I'm not a great fan of radishes.
It's not that I don't like the taste, but a couple of slices is enough.
So what I need to grow is about one radish plant every week. What I actually grow is about 20 plants a week, but only for about 3 weeks, when I run out of steam.
The main reason I grow them is that every gardening book advises to intersperse radish seed with slower growing seeds of other crops such as lettuce and parsnip. The rapidly growing radish seedlings mark the line of the other crop so it is not lost in amongst the multitude of other weeds competing for resources.
The trouble is that those other weeds invariably overtake the radish too!
The result is that, a couple of months after sowing, I suddenly discover three rows of radishes gone over.
Peppery, woody balls in the ground topped by gangly shoots culminating in delicate little flowers.
One year I'll get this element of my gardening sorted, but until then it doesn't really matter. In fact, better than that, I have discovered a new way to use radishes. For those radish flowers develop into small pods shaped like magical toadstools and with a flavour more subtle than the roots but still distinctly radish.
I reckon you end up with a much more sophisticated vegetable and you get a good number of pods per plant too. Plenty enough to add a delicious flavour to my omelette.
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