Cool-Season Vegetables: How to Grow Radishes

If you want to get kids started gardening, radishes are a great choice. Most varieties are quick to grow, fun to harvest and tasty raw or cooked. They come in a number of colors (white, red, pink, rose, black, gold, lavender, purple) and can even be striped. They have great shapes, from small and round to carrot-like long ones. They’re also fairly disease free.

Though regular radishes are relatively small, Japanese radishes, or daikon, can be huge. These take longer to grow (up to five months) but are worth it for the range of flavors.

When to plant: Start sowing regular radish seeds two to three weeks before the last frost in spring, and in late summer four to six weeks before the first fall frost. Continue sowing every two weeks or so in both spring and fall. (You may be able to continue into winter in mild climates.) Set out daikon in fall about two months before the first frost.

Days to maturity: 21 to 150

Light requirement: Full sun is best, but they can take partial shade

Water requirement: Consistent water, but don’t flood the garden bed

Favorites: April Cross (daikon), Champion, Cherry Belle, Crimson Giant, Easter Egg, French Breakfast, Hailstone, Long Black Spanish, Minowase (daikon), Plum Purple, Sakurajima (daikon), Scarlet Globe, Snowbelle


Planting and care: Start with soil that is well amended, loose, and free of clods and rocks, and that drains well. Sow seeds about a half inch deep and an inch apart, leave more room if the plants are larger, or simply throw them into the bed and thin them out as they grow. Keep the bed consistently watered and weeded. You may run into problems with root maggots and beetles, but those aren't common.


Harvest: The earlier you harvest, the milder radishes tastes. Pull them up when they are relatively small or they will become tough. You will probably need to dig up the larger varieties.

More: How to grow cool-season vegetables

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