Last year, I discovered a previously unknown variety of radish that is truly remarkable. In my unheated greenhouse, I grow tomatoes and cucumbers, and early in the spring, I also sow radishes in the spaces between the plants. They don’t interfere with the growth of the other plants and actually create a unique microclimate around the cucumber and tomato plants, shielding them with their large leaves from unexpected frosts. I try to cover the seedlings, along with the radishes, with thick wrapping paper during bad weather—it’s a reliable way to protect the plants from dying.
My radishes mature quickly; by the time the cucumbers start to bear fruit, they are nearly all harvested, freeing up the space in between. This allows me to create deep furrows for “subsurface” irrigation of the plants in the area where the radishes once grew.
In the photo, you can see four varieties of radishes: a regular one (I don’t know the name), Soskulka, White Giant, and a New Hybrid. The New Hybrid resulted from cross-pollinating the White Giant with Soskulka. I named this hybrid Miracle Radish: in terms of taste, it surpasses all the varieties I know. The only one that might compare is the White Giant, which is one of its parent plants. Both original varieties are extraordinarily juicy, not bitter, and don’t become woody. Plus, in terms of size, the roots have no competitors (each weighing between 300 to 500 grams). If you sow radishes with a spacing of 15 cm, you can harvest up to 25 to 30 kg of juicy roots from just one square meter. Throughout the warm season, I make several sowings of radishes, so this delicious product stays on the table for a long time.
I’ve learned how to produce seeds for the Miracle Radish. To do this, I left a few plants from the first sowing, and by mid-summer, I had seeds. The seed plants grew to over 3 meters tall and produced numerous side shoots, which, of course, required staking. Otherwise, they would break at the slightest touch, as the stems of the seed plants are very juicy and fragile. Therefore, I stake them very carefully and in a timely manner. Flowering and the formation of new pods occur all summer long, until the first frosts. Now, I don’t collect the pods with seeds during the summer; instead, at the end of the season, I pull the entire plants, hang them in my garden shed until the cold sets in, and then I remove the pods with the seeds and thresh them. I extract the seeds from the pods and store them at home until spring sowing. In the spring, I sow the dry seeds into well-moistened soil. The seedlings appear 3 to 4 days after sowing.