Winter sowing of radishes worked!

It was quite a surprise to see radish seedlings sprouting in late February. They were planted as a winter sowing experiment in December. I’ve been planting them this way over the past few years, but usually later in the season.

These radishes were sowed in December and are coming up now. Photos by Doug Oster

Can’t wait to thin out these seedlings to use as micro greens in a salad.

It’s a way to mimic nature. If we didn’t pick the radish root, the plants would sprout, form a root, grow a flower stalk, bloom and then produce seeds. Those seeds sit on the soil and then germinate when ready. I also sowed some other cool weather crops seen here In the Garden video and I’ll be interested to see if and when they sprout.

It’s given me the inspiration to plant earlier than I ever thought possible. The soil is way too wet to work right now though. It won’t be ready for weeks to accept a shovel. I’m always telling gardeners, if the soil sticks to the shovel it’s too early to turn it over. Working in soil that’s too wet will destroy the soil structure, creating clumps that will persist for the rest of the season. I’m gardening in raised beds that have been plied with compost for nearly two decades. By adding a couple of inched of more compost, the beds can be seeded.

I just buy a couple bags of compost to use, they are cheap and easy to move around the garden. I use an entire packet of seed and most of them sprout, forming a carpet of greens. One of the benefits of these early sprouts comes from the thinnings. Since they are too close together, they need to be thinned out. The resulting little seedlings are micro greens which are highly nutritious and also sweet and tender.

The entire plant is edible when it’s this small and it’s marvelous to taste something fresh out of the garden so early in the season.

I’ll be planting lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, arugula, beets, other greens and anything else with a hard seed coat that loves cool weather earlier than I ever have before.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.