I've mentioned that we harvest early spring greens from our garden from perennials, self-seeding annuals, and greens that I plant in fall to overwinter and harvest in spring. Those greens are very welcome in March and April.
However, they finish up long before any of the main-season garden veggies are ready for harvest. There seems to be this void in the harvesting calendar beginning in May and lasting until the first or second week in June for my garden.
Enter the veggies that I plant for quick greens. I think all vegetable gardeners know that radishes are a fast-growing from seed vegetable. I take advantage of their spritely growth by seeding them thickly with the sole intention of growing radishes for their greens. I can harvest quite a lot of vegetable matter in a small space by planting my radish seeds close together.
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| peas in the back, radish greens in the middle, and spinach in front spinach and radish planted in same week |
I sowed these seeds around the first of April, and now there's plenty of greens for harvesting. I made a tuna-noodle casserole the other night and used radish greens as part of the vegetable component. I've also been using some of the greens added to eggs at lunch for myself. And, one of my daughters is making lentil-vegetable curry tonight and using more of radish greens.
To harvest radish greens, I pull up any plants that are crowding others, or about 1 in every 3 or 4 plants. I leave the plants which have roots that look like they could develop into a sizable red radish. Until those are ready, we're enjoying these lovely greens in a time of the season that usually doesn't offer much ready in the garden.
