Radishes are a fast and easy vegetable to grow from seed. Their spicy crunch adds delightful flavor and color to salads, slaws, and snack mixes. While you can certainly purchase radish seeds each year from seed catalogs or nurseries, collecting your own radish seeds is simple, free, and ensures you have locally adapted seeds for future crops.
When and How to Harvest Radish Seeds
Radish seeds form in seed pods on radish plants that are allowed to flower and complete their life cycle past the regular vegetable harvest stage. Here are some tips for identifying and harvesting ripe radish seed pods:
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Leave several good radish roots in the ground at the end of the normal harvest season rather than pulling all the radishes. Choose plants that grew well and have desirable traits.
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Radish plants left in the ground will send up tall flower stalks, up to 5 feet tall. Small white or lavender flowers will bloom, followed by long narrow seed pods.
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Allow seed pods to dry completely on the plants You’ll know they are ready when pods turn brown and become brittle, rattling seeds inside when shaken
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Wearing gloves, crush dried pods by hand over a container to collect the small round radish seeds. Remove any pod debris.
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Spread seeds out on a screen or sieve to further separate seeds from chaff. Let breeze blow away chaff.
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Store thoroughly dry radish seeds in an airtight jar in a cool, dry place.
Growing Radishes for Seed Harvesting
When growing radishes specifically for seed harvesting follow these tips
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Sow seeds in early spring or fall, avoiding summer heat Radishes grow best in cool conditions.
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Space plants 8-12 inches apart to allow good air circulation and avoid disease issues when growing into maturity.
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Water regularly to keep plants healthy and vigorous for good seed production.
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Allow multiple plants to go to seed to ensure genetic diversity in collected seeds.
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Identify and pull any plants that bolt prematurely or show poor growth habits. Only save seeds from your best plants.
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Stake up flowering stalks if needed to prevent breaking.
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Once seed pods dry and open, seeds will disperse quickly. Check plants daily when seed pods look mature.
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Cut and hang entire mature stalks indoors to allow pods to continue drying if rain is forecast.
When to Plant Radish Seeds
One benefit of collecting your own radish seeds is you can plant them at the ideal time for your location. Here are some general guidelines:
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Spring radishes – Sow seeds 4-6 weeks before your average last spring frost date. Make successive sowings every 2 weeks for continuous harvests.
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Fall radishes – Sow seeds 8-10 weeks before your average first fall frost date. Make successive sowings every 2-3 weeks.
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Winter radishes – Sow 10-12 weeks before expected fall frost to allow good growth before cold weather.
Adjust timing based on weather and your own experience. Getting to know when radishes thrive in your garden is a key benefit of seed saving.
Storing and Testing Saved Radish Seeds
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Place thoroughly dry seeds in a glass jar or envelopes and store in a cool, dry location away from direct sun. Properly stored, radish seeds remain viable for 4-5 years.
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Label seeds with radish variety and year collected. Store seeds from different years separately.
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Prior to planting saved seeds the following season, test viability by placing a sample on a damp paper towel. Viable seeds will sprout within 5 days when kept moist at room temperature.
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Check germination percentage and adjust sowing density accordingly. Discard seeds if germination drops below 70%.
Advantages of Harvesting Your Own Radish Seeds
Saving seeds from homegrown radishes offers many rewards:
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It’s completely free! No need to purchase new seeds.
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Seeds develop locally adapted traits and better suit your growing conditions over time.
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You can maintain access to heirloom or hybrid varieties you love.
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You can control for taste, color, size, and other traits you prefer by saving seeds selectively.
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You gain satisfaction from continuing and improving the radish crops in your garden each year.
Part of the fun of gardening is not just growing vegetables to eat, but harnessing the entire reproductive cycle of your favorite plants. With minimal effort, you can generate a continual, bountiful supply of radish seeds tailored to your garden.
Radish Seed Pod Info
Many people grow radishes for their tasty roots, but did you know that you can also eat the seed pods? Not only can you eat them, but they are also really tasty, with a milder flavor than the root and an interesting crunch. When a radish plant flowers and then goes to seed, it makes seed pods. These are called radish pods. There are some types of radishes, like “Rattail,” that are grown just for their seed pods, but all of them make seed pods that should be eaten. The pods look remarkably similar to short pea pods or green beans. Info about radish seed pods tells us that they are a popular snack in Germany, where they are eaten raw with beer. As a new food to North America, They are called ‘moongre in India and added to stir fries with potatoes and spices. You can eat these smelly pods, but can you save the seeds inside? Yes, you can save the seeds from radishes. You can throw the radish root into a salad and eat the tasty pods as a snack. You can also pick the seed pods. Yes, you can compost the rest of the plant so that not a single bit of it goes to waste.
To save radish seeds, all you have to do is leave the pods on the plants until they turn brown and are mostly dry. Keep an eye on them if the weather is turning wet so they dont mildew. If this looks like it will happen soon, I think you should stop saving radish seeds and instead pick the pods and eat them before they go bad. When the pods turn brown, you can lift the whole plant and put it on its side in a brown bag. Hang the bag with the plant seed dangling down into it and allow the seeds to mature naturally. Once they are completely mature, the pods pop open and the seeds drop into the bag. You can also let seed pods grow in a cool, dry place and then winnow or sift them to get the seeds out of the chaff. Seeds will store for up to five years in a cool, dry area. Remember that if you collect radish seeds from hybrid varieties, you will not get exact copies of the parent plant the next time you plant them because radishes easily cross-pollinate. Regardless, the resulting radish will still be a radish. If you want to be a purest, select only those seeds from dedicated heirloom plantings.
Easiest Way To Save Radish Seeds
FAQ
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