Along with being tasty and nutrient-dense, radishes are fun and easy to grow, plus they mature quickly.
An excellent crop for beginning gardeners, these members of the mustard family are also easy to harvest – but it’s important to get the timing right.
Depending on the type you grow, you may also need a hand tool to help with the task!
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Whether you plan to slice up your homegrown radishes for fresh salads, as an addition to homemade kimchi, or toss into warming winter stews or stir fries, you’ll want to pick them at the right time for big, crisp roots.
Our guide to growing radishes has full details about how to cultivate these easy-to-grow root veggies.
In this article I’ll walk you through the process of harvesting so you can confidently stride over to your vegetable patch and pluck them from the soil.
Here’s what I’ll cover:
What You’ll Learn
When to Pick
There are many different types of radishes, with some producing edible roots in as little as 20 days from sowing. Others require up to 90 days of growing time until they are ready to pick.
The first step in knowing when to harvest is to refer to the number of days to maturity as listed on the seed packet.
Count forward from the sowing date to see if you are approaching harvest time.
Or if you remember at the time of sowing, it might help to note the estimated harvest time on a calendar or in your garden planner.
Here are some maturity times for some of the most commonly grown types:
Small radishes are either round or elongated, and are available in beautiful shades of red, pink, purple, yellow, and white, depending on the cultivar.
Most small varieties will be an inch or two wide at maturity.
‘Cherry Belle,’ a small, round, red type, can be picked in just 22 days.
You can find ‘Cherry Belle’ seeds available at Botanical Interests.
‘Early Scarlet Globe,’ another red cultivar, will be ready in just 20 days from sowing.
Packets of ‘Early Scarlet Globe’ seeds are available at Eden Brothers.
And ‘French Breakfast,’ an heirloom cultivar that is red and white with elongated rather than round roots, requires only 28 days.
Seeds are available at High Mowing Organic Seeds.
If the varieties you are growing are small and round, or small and elongated, most likely the harvest time will be somewhere between 20 and 30 days.
However, there are larger types as well, and as you would expect, these require a longer growing period.
Many of the larger types can be kept for a long time in cool storage.
These will need up to 90 days to mature and generally reach three to four inches wide for round types, and up to two feet long for daikons.
‘Green Luobo’ is a wide, elongated, green cultivar that needs at least 60 days to reach maturity.
‘Green Luobo’ seeds are available at True Leaf Market.
‘Round Black Spanish’ is a round winter storage type that takes at between 60 and 70 days to size up.
You can find ‘Round Black Spanish’ seeds at Botanical Interests.
And there are many types of daikon – large, elongated radishes with pungent flavor that are usually white in color.
My favorite daikon cultivar is ‘Japanese Minowase.’ This cultivar will be ready in about 45 days.
Seeds can be found at Eden Brothers.
When you have an estimated harvest time in mind, check the crops regularly – a telltale sign that the roots are ready is the appearance of the tops bulging up above the surface of the soil.
Keep in mind that if you miss the optimal harvest window, as the days grow warmer the plants may bolt. This means they will produce flowers, making the roots too fibrous to enjoy for food.
If the plants bolt, you can always leave them in place and collect the edible green seed pods instead, which have a pungent, wasabi-like flavor.
Or pull out the bolted plants, toss them on the compost pile, and fill that spot in your garden patch with a warm season plant!
How to Harvest Small Radishes
You’ve tracked the estimated harvest time of your crop, and see the bright, rounded promise of these delicious crisp veggies emerging from the garden soil.
Now what?
Picking small varieties is easy!
Place your fingers around the foliage, just above the root and pull upwards.
The root should release easily from the soil.
Gather all the radishes that look ready and store them in the fridge if you aren’t going to eat them right away.
It may be tempting to let them grow larger, but waiting often leads to bolting instead of bigger roots.
Harvesting Large Types
Large round types, such as the previously mentioned ‘Round Spanish Black’ are just as easy to harvest as their small counterparts.
You simply grasp the foliage and pull the roots free from the soil.
Larger types that are elongated, such as daikon, can be a bit trickier to harvest, and depending on the soil or growing medium, you may need the help of a tool.
I recommend using a hori hori knife, a long slender hand tool that has a multitude of gardening uses!
Insert the blade of the hori hori into the soil a couple of inches out from the daikon root.
Dig down and use the blade to loosen the soil around it until the root comes free.
After harvesting, brush off any excess soil, and either place the vegetables in cool storage or take them to the kitchen for processing.
A Radiant Bunch for Your Lunch
When the radishes are harvested, store any that you don’t plan to eat right away in a cool location.
If you’re keeping them in the fridge, you can leave the greens attached if you plan to eat them in addition to the roots.
For longer term storage, wipe off soil from the roots, and trim off the greens.
How will you enjoy your radishes? In salads, smoothies, kimchi, or something else? Do you have any favorite recipes that you’d like to share with us and our readers?
Please post your food prep ideas in the comments section below! And if you have any remaining questions, feel free to drop them there as well.
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