The Year of the Radish

Every year, something always goes gangbusters in the garden, and something is always a flop.

Last year, it seemed like the spinach would never quit! Finally, in desperation to get the tomatoes into the high tunnel, we pulled all the rest of the spinach in one big festival of flying greens. It filled the dump bed of the utility golf cart, all the extra seating, and even up onto the roof. It looked like some kind of camouflage exercise. That night, we deveined spinach until 2 am.

This year, in fear of another spinach overload, our March preparations of the cool soils in the solar-warmed high tunnel came with some alterations. Instead of just running spinach seed through our six-row seeder, we mixed it in with Easter Egg radishes.

Here’s the theory: radish and spinach seeds are of similar size, so they can both go through the same hopper in the six-row seeder. Radishes mature quicker than spinach, so they would be harvested before the spinach was full-grown. Also, mixing the seed would spread out the spinach—leaving more elbow room for each plant as it grew. We’d also get two crops out of the same space. It seemed like a real win-win all around.

Easter Egg radishes come up all sorts of different colors—red, white, purple, pink. They make beautiful bunches for market, all mixed together. But if you plant them too late, the hot weather will make them all bolt. So the trick with a good radish crop is to get them in the ground early, when the soil is cool.

As we loaded up the six-row seeder, we noticed that our radish seed was getting old. Ah, well, throw a bunch in, and some of them ought to take, right? We ran the seeder up and down the carefully prepared beds, wetted them down, and hoped for the best.

And the best came—not in spinach, but in radishes. Bins and bins and bins of radishes. Every three days, I was out picking radishes. They filled the cooler. They filled every bin that I had. They filled the sink as we washed them. They appeared in every CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share for months. They waited to be bought in the cooler, and they appeared by the bin-full at farmer’s market.

We planted them in with the carrots, and they also came up in droves. It was tricky, teasing out the radishes amidst the tiny carrot fronds. Sometimes one would pull out accidentally, and I’d tuck it back into the damp soil. Try again little one, hopefully you can still grow again.

Three weeks ago, I finally passed out the last of the radish crop. What a cheer we made when we washed the last bunch! Hours and hours of work, and who knows how many countless pounds of red, white, pink, and purple orbs. The spinach turned out to be a mediocre year, but it was no doubt the year of the radish!

Yesterday, I was working in the garden, weeding that same carrot row. High above my head, bolted radishes waved their pink and purple flowered branches like miniature trees. Out they came, bringing fresh sunlight to the maturing carrot crop below. Even in August, the radishes are still reminding me that they’re there.

Overplanting? It happens! Here’s a poem by Stephanie Davis about the conundrum.

“Talkin’ Harvest Time Blues”

Well, it starts with the catalogue that comes in the mail,
In the middle of winter, when you’ve had it with those pale,
Thick-skinned, store-bought, sorry, hard-as-a-rock,
Excuses for tomatoes with the flavor of a sock.

And there on the cover sits THE juicy-red,
Ripe homegrown tomato you’ve had dancing in your head.
Never mind what you said last August, how you’d had it up to here,
With the hoeing and the weeding—that’s what you say every year.

So you fix yourself some cocoa, sink into your easy chair
Put your feet up and you thumb through the pictures and compare
Big Boys, Better Boys, Early Girls and Romas,
That new disease and drought-resistant hybrid from Sanoma.

Then it’s on to peas and carrots, lima beans and beets and kale,
And you’ve never tried kohlrabi, say, the lettuce is for sale!
What’s a garden without sweet corn? Better plant some marigolds,
And you just read in prevention about how garlic’s good for colds.

So you phone an order in that nearly melts your Visa card,
And gaze out at the foot of snow that blankets your backyard,
And visualize your garden, oh so peaceful and serene,
Until at last you close your eyes and slip into a dream about—

Harvest time: bushels of red ripe tomatoes.
Harvest time: sweet corn that melts in your mouth.

Well the days turn into weeks and the next thing that you know,
There’s a robin at your feeder as the last patch of snow
Disappears about the time the UPS truck,
Pulls into your driveway and you sand there awe-struck,

As 47 “Perishable, plant right away” marked boxes are unloaded on your porch,
As you say, “Are you sure?”
“Yes Ma’am, need your signature here.
“Looks like someone’s gonna have them quite a garden this year.”

Well you watch him pull away and you sink onto your knees,
‘Cause you’re feeling kind of woozy—47 boxes please!
God, I know I’ve got a problem, and we’ve had this talk before,
But just help me this one last time, I won’t order any more!

And then, as if in answer to your prayers, you’re sister’s van,
Pulls up into the driveway with Aunt Martha, Uncle Stan,
Two nephews and a cousin, who just stopped to say “Hello,”
Are soon all sporting callouses going up and down each row.

You the warden push them on, it’s a scene from “Cool Hand Luke,”
“Over there, those clods need breaking, leave more space around that cuc!
“See those bags of steer manure, bring a dozen over fast!
“Yes I see you have lumbago, but you’ll thank me when at last it’s—

Harvest time: show you what a real strawberry tastes like.
Harvest time: might even let you help me dig potatoes.

Well that night it starts to sprinkle and you can’t help feeling smug,
‘Cause you’re garden’s in the ground and getting watered while you’re snug,
Underneath the covers…or at least until midnight,
When the temperature starts dropping and pretty soon you’re smack right—

In the middle of your garden, in your jammies, on your knees,
With a headlamp and a hammer and some tarps and,
“Geeze Louise it’s cold!” but you keep on working, ‘til the last plant’s safe from harm,
And there’s holes in your new jammies and bursitis in your arm.

‘Cause by-gosh you’re a gardener, right down to your muddy clogs,
And even when the rabbits take your lettuce and stray dogs,
Pee on your zucchini and a fungus coats your kale,
Because it’s been raining for three weeks straight, do you falter, do you fail!

Yes of course!
You throw down your hoe, stamp your feet and call it quits,
Declare for all the neighborhood that gardening is the pigs and you’ll never plant another and this one can bloody rot.

And then the sun peaks through the clouds and, like as not,
You see a couple weeds you must have missed the last go round,
And shake your head and meekly pick your hoe up off the ground.

And hoe and keep on hoeing, ‘til the Romas dangle red,
Ripe and juicy on the vine as sweet corn towers overhead,
Green beans hang on the trellis and big orange pumpkins sprawl about,
And that satisfying feeling hits you once more when you shout—

It’s harvest time: break out the canning jars!
Harvest time: man the pressure cooker!
Harvest time: you have to take the zucchini, we’re related.
Harvest time: now this is a tomato.

***
So here’s to the year of the radish! Onto a plethora of green beans! See you down on the farm sometime.