Planting dates for radishes
Radish is one of the first spring vegetables and, perhaps, the most affordable financially. At a time when the prices for the first cucumbers and tomatoes are going through the roof, small, red juicy roots are quite affordable. However, one of the best options to provide yourself with vitamins is home cultivation, because your vegetables are always the most natural, but you can still argue about the quality of purchased vegetables, which you do not know what they fed.
To get tasty root vegetables with sweet flesh, you need to know when to plant your radishes. This crop has a short growing season and good frost resistance, but is demanding on climatic conditions. Sowing seeds too early in open unheated soil with subzero night temperatures leads to the freezing of seedlings, and with late planting, the pulp loses its taste, becomes tough and bitter.
Landing dates
After sowing the seeds, the first harvest of radish can be obtained in a month, and some ultra-early varieties ripen even faster, in 20 days. This makes it possible to plant radishes not only in early spring, but throughout the year in the presence of a warm greenhouse. It all depends on when you need to get the harvest.
In general, you can plant radishes:
- in the spring;
- in summer;
- before winter;
- in winter.
The optimum temperature for the growth and formation of radish fruits is from 15 to 20 degrees Celsius (the plant can withstand short-term frosts up to 3 degrees below zero).
Spring sowing dates
Depending on local climatic conditions, seeds are usually sown in open ground in March. In regions with late spring, planting dates are shifted to April.
To protect seedlings from freezing temperatures at night, early spring planting is best done in greenhouse, covered with glass, then you can sow seeds in the first half of March. They are planted in film greenhouses at the end of March, and from the beginning of April, you can safely sow seeds in open ground, covering the seedlings with a film for the first time.
It makes no sense to postpone spring sowing later than until mid-May: at this time the weather is already too warm, and daylight hours are lengthening, which leads to shooting.
Summer sowing dates
Accelerated ripening of the crop allows you to get juicy roots in early autumn. For this, the seeds are sown at the end of summer, in August. Most often used late ripening radish varietiesthat keep well.
When sowing in summer, special attention should be paid to watering: the radish root system is poorly developed and without a sufficient amount of moisture, one can only dream of a harvest.
Features of winter sowing
Some gardeners practice podzimny sowing of radishes, because the seeds winter well in the soil, plus you can also save time on spring work. The garden bed must be prepared in early autumn by digging it up and adding fertilizers (compost, double superphosphate and potassium sulfate). It is better to cover the area with a film on top. It is necessary to start sowing in winter when a stable coolness is established - not earlier than the end of November, or even in December (depending on the region). The sown beds are covered with peat or dry soil prepared in advance and covered with snow.
For the winter cultivation of radishes, of course, you need to have a specially equipped room at home, that is, a heated greenhouse.