Vegetable Gardening (79 page)

Spicy-hot Spanish black radishes look like round black balls or cylinders and can be kept in a root cellar for 6 months.

Chinese radishes look like turnips but are red, green, or white on the inside. They taste similar to the Japanese radishes.

Rat-tail radishes are grown for the spicy-tasting seed pods that form after flowering.

The following varieties work well for the beginning gardener:

For the classic red or white round radishes, try ‘Cherriette Hybrid', ‘Easter Egg II' (a mix of red and white), and ‘Amethyst' (purple skin, white flesh).

For the elongated white or red roots, try ‘French Breakfast' (a mix of red and white), ‘White Icicle', or ‘D'Avignon' (the top of the root is red and the bottom is white).

For daikons, try ‘Minowase Summer Cross #3', ‘Miyashige', and ‘April Cross'.

Some good black Spanish radish varieties are ‘Nero Tondo' (round shape) and ‘Long Black Spanish'.

Some Chinese varieties are ‘Red Meat' (green outside, red inside), ‘China Rose' (red outside and red inside), and ‘Misato Green' (green all the way through).

Growing guidelines

The round or elongated "traditional" radishes are normally planted in early spring to mature while the temperatures are still cool. Daikons can be planted in spring or summer, depending on the variety. Chinese and black radishes, however, are best planted in late summer or early fall for a fall or winter harvest. Rat-tail radishes are planted in spring.

For all types of radishes, form raised beds, fertilize, and sow both spring and fall plantings as you would carrots (see Chapter 6). The keys to success with any radish crop are loosening the soil well, weeding, thinning the plants to give the roots enough room to expand (usually 6 inches apart), keeping the plants well watered, and growing them when it's cool.

You can harvest spring-planted radish roots as soon as they start to form. Harvest daikon, Chinese, and black radishes when you need them (although they're most tender when eaten on the small side); they can withstand light frosts in the fall. Harvest rat-tail radish pods once they form.

Rhubarb

Rhubarb (
Rheum rhubarbarum
), like asparagus and horseradish, is an exception in the vegetable world. It's a perennial plant (except in zones 8 and warmer, where it's treated as an annual), so once established, it will come back faithfully year after year. It will even spread, allowing you to dig, divide, and share plants with friends. Hopefully, you have many friends, because you'll only need a few healthy rhubarb plants to produce plenty for pies, jams, and jellies.

The part of the rhubarb plant you eat is the leaf stalk that grows from the crown of the plant. Don't eat the leaf itself, unless you want an upset stomach.

Depending on the variety, the stalks are green or red and taste sour. The most tender varieties have leaf stalks that are red all the way through, such as ‘Chipman' and ‘Valentine'. Because of its tart taste, rhubarb usually isn't eaten raw (even though I have fond memories of eating rhubarb as a child by dipping the stalks in a bowl of sugar!). It's best used as an ingredient in cooking. Can't you just smell that strawberry-rhubarb pie fresh from the oven?

Rhubarb is one of those "plant and forget" crops. It's a perennial, like asparagus, so it comes back year after year. If it has full sun, well-drained soil, water, and lots of compost and manure mixed in, it will grow like a weed. Rhubarb does best in cool climates, so gardeners in Florida and Arizona may have to rely on their northern friends for fresh rhubarb. You also can buy plants from a local garden center or online.

For best quality, harvest the leaf stalks as soon as the leaves completely unfold to a flat surface. Always leave at least two leaf stalks per plant so the plant can rejuvenate itself. If a seed stalk forms (usually from the center of the plant), cut it off to extend the leaf-stalk harvesting season. The plants die back in fall, but they reemerge in spring from the roots.

Rhubarb is easy to dig and divide. In spring, just as the new shoots are starting to emerge, dig up the whole plant with a sharp spade and divide the main crown into many 3- to 4-inch-diameter sections. Plant these sections; within 2 to 3 years, you can harvest from these new plants.