Radishes belongs to the cruciferous family. Most common are its annual varieties that give root crops and seeds in the first year of sowing. But there is still a two-year radish, which root crop appears in the first year after sowing, and seeds — the second. We will consider only the first (one-year) option, because it is often grown. Roots can be round, flat or cylindrical. Painting-saturated red, pink, white, violet and even yellow.
Choose a place
Select radishes solar, insulated from the winds place.
This culture likes light loose soil (sandy loam). On my site the soil with a weakly acidic reaction, so the problems with the yield never occurred, but also on neutral soils radishes will definitely grow well. Every year I sow radishes in a new place, so that the predecessors were vegetables from another family. It is not recommended to sow after the cabbage, horse radishh root, garden cress and other cruciferous plants, as it accumulates in the soil the microorganisms that can cause disease, characteristic of this family.
Prepare the soil in advance
Radishes responsive to organic fertilizers in the soil: under the autumn digging make humus or compost (I dig to a depth of about 30 cm). In the spring, loosen the soil to a depth of about 20 cm — already for the formation of small beds, be sure to make phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.
Sowing radishes
I sow radishes seeds directly in the open ground; I can re-sow all summer to constantly get young radishes. The first sowing I have at the end of March, when the land is still frozen. The next batch sow in late April or early May. If you want fresh radishes at the end of summer am re-seeding in late July.
Under the radishes I make the grooves with a depth of about 3 cm at a distance of about 20 cm from each other. If the soil is dry-water, if wet-and you can not water. Sow thickly, but after thinning shoots, leaving a distance between the sprouts of about 5 cm
Seeds can germinate already at +5 °C, but this will happen for an extremely long time. If the temperature increases to +15 °C, the shoots will appear in a week, and at +23 °C shoots can please for 4 days. For growth, the optimal air temperature is +20 °C.
Care for radishes
Care is simple: weeding, watering and feeding.
In dry summer, radishes are watered every day. If the weather is not very hot, I can reduce the amount of watering up to 1 time in 2 days. Moisture is very important radish, but if it comes unevenly, the roots can crack. With an excess of moisture radish becomes tasteless, watery. If the water is not enough, the bitterness, elongation, rigidity of the fruit cannot be avoided.
On poor soils for early varieties can be carried out one mineral fertilizing for late — maturing varieties-two, but no more. My first experience in fertilizing radish was unsuccessful: the dose of fertilizer was too high, which caused a rapid foliage growth and elongation of roots. At the same time they were ugly very small. Don’t repeat my mistakes.
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