Today I want to talk about growing vegetables that you may not like. One of the most obvious things when planting an edible garden is growing varieties you like because, hey, you are supposed to be eating them, right? And why waste the space?
I grow one vegetable that I don't particularly like, and my hooband will not eat. Radishes. Don't like them, but I find them very useful in the garden. I plant radishes in the same row as carrots and leaf lettuce. Radishes are quick to germinate and grow, so they mark the rows and break up the soil for the slow-growing carrots. By the time the carrots need more room the radishes are ready to pull. Win-win. Also, my FIL loves radishes, so I just give them all to him.
This year, though, I discovered a variety of radish that I cannot grow with carrots (or parsnips, which can use the help too). It is called the Munich Bier radish (Muenchen Bier-radi) , and you cannot grow them with carrots. Why?
They get too big:
That's a LOT of radish.
Now, here's the kicker. Cook's Garden recommends slicing them, slathering them with some butter, salting them and eating them with a nice, dark German beer. Apparently you can also dip them in sugar. They are quite the snack in Germany.
I LOVE these with the butter. Haven't tried the beer or the sugar (yet). I'm so tickled to find a radish I like. I just can't get over these things, and so far (knock on wood) they haven't shown any sign of getting woody. And I easily have enough that I can pull one a week through the end of August. And I can plant another whole patch the middle of July for Fall harvest!
So, it really pays to keep trying new varieties of things because you never know when you'll find something you like!
9 comments:
Those are some monster radishes. How do they stack up in taste to the regular radishes?
Wow! They are like something of the Sett of Harry Potter!
They are hot. Not as hot as some I've eaten, but still. If you put some butter on them, though, the heat is reduced dramatically. I think it is something to do with the fat in the butter. It sounds weird but is really good.
THOSE are radishes!? If you hadn't told me, I would have assumed they were turnips. Those are enormous!
Have you considered pickling any excess radishes? Pickled radishes have wonderful crispness and far less heat than fresh radishes.
Hi, if you leave these radishes to go to seed the seed pods are crunchy, hot and great with a beer. Other radish varieties are good too but these are great.
Hi
I just happen to be growing some of these at the moment, do you know long they take to grow, or how big they should be be they taste good, or are they like beetroots? taste good all the tim/size?
Never heard of putting butter on them. One slices the radish thin, salts them, and sets them aside to cry. Then you get a good rye bread, butter the bread, and enjoy with a good beer.
I found this thread while trying to describe Munich Beer radishes to my sister. I grow them as a soup vegetable. They seem to be hardy into temperatures in the mid-teens. I have had some over-winter without getting woody. They are too hot for me raw (and I take my Thai food at 3 chilis). The greens are even good in soup. They are good at all sizes. I pickle my over-abundance of asparagus and fiddleferns in the spring, and my garlic scapes in summer. Maybe I will add radishes this year. I tried to post this before, but it looks like it didn't work.
I found this thread while trying to describe Munich Beer radishes to my sister. I grow them as a soup vegetable. They seem to be hardy into temperatures in the mid-teens. I have had some over-winter without getting woody. They are too hot for me raw (and I take my Thai food at 3 chilis). The greens are even good in soup. They are good at all sizes. I pickle my over-abundance of asparagus and fiddleferns in the spring, and my garlic scapes in summer. Maybe I will add radishes this year. I tried to post this before, but it looks like it didn't work.
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