Yes! Finally!

Years ago, I read in a homesteady/pioneer living type book (I no longer remember where; it wasn’t in the book I thought it was in) that growing radishes for their roots only is a pretty recent thing. Our pioneers more often grew them for their seed pods, and that they were often pickled.

I am not a fan of radishes, though my family is okay with them. I was curious to find out if I would like the seed pods, instead, and wanted to know what they were like, pickled.

The past few years, I’ve tried to grow radishes with very little success. They either didn’t germinate, germinated but got eaten by something, or when they finally did grow, they didn’t grow well. The one time a radish bolted and went to seed, it was too late in the season for any pods to develop.

This year, I put the last of my old radish seeds, plus some from a seed pack I was given, into my root vegetable seed mix that was direct sown in the fall. I can’t remember exactly, right now, but there was at least four, possibly five, varieties in the mix.

For the first time, we got radishes! Including yellow ones. Some of them immediately bolted – with the heat we had, that is no surprise – which I was quite happy with.

They do grow into a rather large and pretty plant! The seed pods that have been developing have ranged from a little, round pea sized ball to long and slender pods. Some all green, some with red stripes. The branches of the plants tend to be somewhat fragile, though.

I’ve been snacking on radish pods while doing my rounds or tending the garden for a while now. I definitely like them better than radish roots. I find they have a mild radish taste, and just a hint of a kick to them. They have a nice, satisfying crunch.

Since I never found where I’d read about pickling the pods, and the recipe I think was there as well, a friend was a sweetheart and sent me this link. Interestingly, the beginning of the post describes the pods as being more intensely flavoured than the roots. I wonder if the variety makes the difference, because I find it to be the complete opposite! It does say “winter radishes” tend to be milder than spring or summer ones, but I can’t tell if they mean varieties, or sowing time. If it’s sowing time, then that would explain why I find ours to be milder, not more intense, in flavour.

Last night, my older daughter was able to mixed up a double batch of the brine from the website, so that it would be fully cooled down by morning.

The recipe calls for both rice vinegar and white wine vinegar. I’m not sure if we had any white wine vinegar left, and keep forgetting to ask my daughter, but if we were out, she would have used basic white pickling vinegar (5% acidity).

This morning, I picked a whole bunch of the larger pods, shooting for about 4 cups worth, in total.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Re-Farmer (@the.refarmer)

I collected from the bed in the East yard garden first, which is most of what you can see in the colander in the first photo above. The pods there were all long and slender. The big plant in the high raised bed was mostly the round “pea” looking ones, but there were a few longer ones. Plus, there are a couple of other plants in there.

After collecting the radish seed pods, I also gathered some sugar snap and super sugar snap peas as well. I’ve tried and compared both varieties. I find the flavour is pretty much the same, but the sugar snaps tend to be a touch for fibrous. Stripping the top of pod, where the flower is, and removing the string gets rid of that.

Once inside, they all got a good wash and I left the radish pods to soak while I separated out the peas and put them in the fridge for later.

When it was time to set everything up, I lifted the seed pods into a measuring cup, and it seemed to be just a bit under the 4 cup mark. I was using two 500ml jars for this, so I thought I might be a bit short. In the end, I found I had some left over! They aren’t easy to pack into the jars. I didn’t want to crush them.

Since this is just a quick pickle, I filled the jars with the brine to the top, and used screw on caps instead of lids and rings.

I found myself with some extra brine, too.

I ended up making a third jar with the pea pods jammed into the bottom, then the last of the radish seed pods on top, then emptied most of the leftover brine into it. I didn’t bother taking a picture, though. All three jars are now in the fridge, and we will taste them tomorrow.

One thing I can say from the start about the difference between growing radishes for their roots, or their seed pods. Growing them for their pods would be more efficient. You can grow lots of radishes for their bulbs, and each one is one bulb, and it’s done. They’re all used up. When growing for their pods, one radish plant can provide a surprising amount of edible pods. So just a few radish plants would give you enough pods for both fresh eating and for preserving.

As long as the deer don’t eat them first!

If all goes to plan, I’ll be writing about how they turned out, by tomorrow evening!

The Re-Farmer