Claire Ratinon is an organic food grower who’s worked in a range of roles from growing crops for Ottolenghi’s restaurant, Rovi, to delivering food growing workshops. Claire has also written and created content for Waitrose Food Magazine, Bloom, The Modern House, The Garden Museum and Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time. Claire is bringing her urban food growing expertise to her first book, How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House. It’s designed to appeal to new gardeners and anyone who would like to take on the rewarding challenge of growing their own dinner, even if they’ve only got a window box or balcony to work with.
Today, you can take a look inside this book at Claire’s guide to growing the most delicious radishes imaginable. Read on!
Photo by Rita Platts.
Radishes
Radishes are one of the most satisfying crops to grow yourself, because many varieties transform from tiny seed into crunchy, spicy little roots at lightning speed. Summer varieties take about a month to grow before you can harvest them, and they’re small enough to grow in little pots tucked into a bright corner. Early sowings produce roots that are on the milder side, and the taste warms up as the weather does.
Timing
Radishes are cool-season vegetables, so they can be started in early spring and sown all the way through until the end of summer. If the weather becomes very warm, however, they are prone to bolt and the root can become woody, so, unless you have a cool but bright spot for them, avoid sowing seeds during the warmest months. They will be ready to harvest 4–6 weeks after sowing.
Getting started
Sow radish seeds directly into the container they’re going to live in, and keep them well watered. Once the seedlings emerge, thin out the plants to 4–5cm apart to give them space for the roots to swell.
Photo by Claire Ratinon.
Growing
Container
Depending on the variety, radishes can grow in fairly small containers, needing a depth of no more than 15cm. For longer varieties, such as ‘French Breakfast’, a slightly deeper container is more suitable.
Water
Watering evenly is key to a successful crop, so make sure the compost is kept moist. Check the moisture level (by sticking your finger into the compost) to make sure you don’t water already wet compost, and don’t leave your pots sitting in water otherwise the roots will rot.
Claire Ratinon
Light
The plants must be in a spot that gets at least 8 hours of sunshine or the radishes will not develop properly.
Feeding
Radishes are such swift and unfussy crops that they’ll be harvested and on your plate well before needing a feed to keep growing.
Harvesting
The best way to determine whether your radishes are ready to harvest is to give it a go. Keep a note of when you sowed the seed and, after 4 weeks have passed, pull one root up and see how it’s doing. If it’s well developed and tastes good, harvest the rest and enjoy them; if not, leave the rest to grow for a few more days.
Timely harvesting is essential with radishes, though, and if you leave it even a few days too long the root will split and the taste will change – not for the better.
—How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House by Claire Ratinon (Laurence King Publishing) is out now. Find out more about Claire Ratinon here.
How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House
A vegetable garden is not an option for everyone, and so container growing has become desirable for people with little outside space
Many have discovered the love of growing houseplants and want to take their skills to another level; others are inspired by the idea of growing their own food organically and sustainably. The book covers all the essentials of growing a range of edible plants in pots, and meeting each crop’s specific needs...
Comments
February 10, 2022 at 2:37 am
Thanks for sharing this useful information! Hope that you will continue with the kind of stuff you are doing.