Harvesting Radishes (And A Pickling Shortcut)

I'm usually pretty predictable when it comes to the plants and herbs I choose to grow each spring -- petunias, marigolds, sweet potato vine, vinca, rosemary, basil, mint. Occasionally I get a wild hair, and it usually involves something being on super sale. When I picked up this packet of radish seeds at the end of last year, they were practically giving them away.

My style is usually to keep these seeds in the refrigerator for years until I just throw them away (usually during a move). Well, my mom has an awesome green thumb, and when she and Dad were up for Easter, we got those seeds planted!

I have large pots on our patio and we put in a seed every few inches around the tree I already had in the center. The radishes came up shortly thereafter with their pretty heart-shaped leaves. They take about 25 days to fully mature.

We picked some of the radishes on Mom's recent visit and had a great time pickling them!

I took a total shortcut this time around. After washing the radishes and pulling out my zig-zag knife, we just grabbed a pickle jar from the fridge and decided to throw the radishes right in the jar.

One week later, the pickle juice had turned a pretty rose color, and we had these pickled radishes!

 

How easy is that?!

They made a great addition to an antipasto plate Mom and I put together, and they would also be delicious atop a salad.

I never knew growing radishes would be so fool-proof and fun. Maybe in the future I'll try putting together my own pickling concoction, but this shortcut was just too easy for a new mom!