First Radishes

My first home-grown D'Avignon radishes. Aren't they pretty?

And now, suddenly, my radishes are ready to eat.

And I have abruptly learned something about radishes. You know how they sell them in clusters in the grocery store? They don't actually grow in clusters. 1 radish seed = 1 radish bulb. I'm pretty sure that as a horticulturist, I should have sussed this out somewhat earlier in the process, but I actually only just figured it out this morning.

This, as you might imagine, rather changes the mathematics around how many seeds you should plant, and when.

So my awesome, guerilla, recession-busting garden currently boasts 6--yes SIX!--whole radish bulbs. Well, actually, 3. I ate some.

Yep, this is going to be a huge savings in my weekly grocery bill.

So that's the sad news: radishes are lazy, underproducing bums.

The other sad news: radishes are not very filling. Three radishes for lunch, even with butter and sea salt, leaves you thinking, "That was great! Now where's my cheeseburger?'

But there is happy news: Boy, those squirts grow fast! I'm harvesting less than a month after seeding. And because they grow so fast, there just isn't much time for them to develop diseases or succumb to pests. Easy peasy.

To distill: if you want to have radishes for breakfast, like the French do (or so the radish lobby would have you believe), aim for at least 10 plants per seeding, and seed every 5 days. Also, buy a baguette, because radishes all by themselves, however crisp and refreshing, are like eating air. Unless you're either a chameleon or a monk, they don't make much of a meal.