Grow this radish for its tasty seedpods

Forget those crunchy, bland, red radishes found on relish plates. They’re tasteless in comparison to Rat tail radish pods.

Radishes that have pods produce abundant foliage and tall flower stalks quickly early in the spring. When the lavender flowers are pollinated, they turn into crispy pods with the signature mustard-nuanced flavor all in the radish family have.

Podding radishes (Raphanus caudatus) are like others in the family in that they need cool weather for best flavor and very cool soil (as soon as it can be worked) for best growth.

But podding radishes tolerate heat better than root radishes when temperatures soar.

Rat tail pods begin to form in 40 to 50 days, lower ones ripening first. Pick pods when they are tender, before they become fibrous. The 4- to-12-inch long pods are most crisp and pungent when about the thickness of a pencil.

Pod colors range from green to green mottled with lavender to purple. The purple ones are the spiciest.

Another podding radish, Munchen Bier (55 days), also produces a large, white, turnip-shaped root when planted late in the summer. When soil turns cooler, flower stalks and mild pods form, too.

Podding radishes were planted in most gardens during the Civil War era, but faded from favor in the early 1900s. Originally from Java, they migrated to this country with immigrants and gathered favor with gardeners quickly.

Heirloom enthusiasts, including me, rediscovered podding radishes in the 1980s. They’re crunchy additions to that first spring salad and fast-growing pickle material. Packed with Vitamin C, podding radishes also offer plenty of other low-cal, high-fiber nutrients.

Here’s my favorite radish pod pickle recipe. You can make these in as little as eight hours.

2 cups radish pods
1 teaspoon. sea salt
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
Ground black pepper
Sesame seed oil

Put pods in a mixing bowl and sprinkle with salt. Cover and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Drain accumulated liquid and rinse to remove the salt. Pat dry with paper towels and return to bowl. Add rice wine vinegar, a dash or two of ground black pepper, and a couple drops of sesame seed oil. Refrigerate at least eight hours before serving.

Doreen Howard, the Edible Explorer, is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. If it’s edible and unusual, Doreen figures out a way to grow it in her USDA Zone 4b garden. She’ll try anything once, even smelly Durian. A former garden editor at Woman’s Day, she writes regularly for The American Gardener and The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Garden Guide.

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