There is nothing better than harvesting fruits or vegetables from your own garden. Radishes are particularly enjoyable for a long time. Because you can harvest them every day. Work minimally and enjoy maximally – hobby gardeners are enthusiastic about the small, red tubers.
When and how should radishes be harvested?
Radishes can be harvested about a month after sowing when the tubers are 2 to 3 centimeters large. Harvesting in the late afternoon is ideal as the nitrate content is then lowest. Simply twist the leaves and break off the tuber.
Maturity test for radishes – better sooner than too late
You can harvest the first radishes about a month after sowing, depending on the variety. After 21 to 28 days, check the tuber size daily on the plants with the largest leaves. All tubers that are 2 to 3 centimeters in size are ripe. They should not be left in the ground for longer than 6 weeks, otherwise they will lose their typical sharp taste, become woody or spongy and burst.
To taste the radish, hold the leaves in one hand and the bulb in the other. Then turn the leaves and break them off. Rinse radishes with cold water. Now comes the bite test. If they taste crispy and spicy, they are ripe. You can also harvest all the others with the same tuber size.
Harvest radishes in the late afternoon
Harvesting root vegetables such as radishes in the late afternoon guarantees the highest vitamin value and the lowest nitrate content. During the day, radishes use sunlight to store the nitrate stored in the tubers into the plant tissue. The nitrate content in the tubers is highest at night and in the morning. Therefore, radishes should be harvested in the afternoon. For the radish mice as a party snack in the evening or for the salad the next day.
Collect radish seeds yourself for next year
If you leave furry or woody radishes in the ground, they will form pods after a short time. As soon as the pods turn light brown, the seed is ripe and can be dried. It is best stored in a paper bag. Next spring you can sow your own radish seeds. This means you are independent of buying seeds when sowing radishes.
Tips & Tricks
Harvesting radishes is too much work for you? Dutch engineers spent 5 years developing a radish robot with 90 pneumatic cylinders. This harvests and bundles 4,000 bundles of radishes per hour. Exactly as many as 20 harvest workers. It remains to be seen when the first mini radish robots will harvest the radishes for hobby gardeners.
