About Radishes

Today i ate a tiny radish from my garden. it was about the size of a peanut M&M, it was spicy and i didn't really enjoy it.

In spite of the fact that I do not particularly like radishes, I continue to plant them in my garden every year. The reasons are two-fold. 

The main reason being that they grow in spite of me and the groundhogs. I have a tendency to get busy and distracted, let the garden get covered in weeds and then the groundhogs come and eat off all my peas and beans and i cry and give up and forget to water, weed, OR harvest anything but a few overripe tomatoes from the one or two overgrown plants that miraculously survived me and the groundhogs. BUT groundhogs do not like radishes. and they grow faster than the weeds. so i plant them and eat a few and feel good about myself and my gardening prowess. the overripe tomatoes do not have the fresh victory of the first spicy little radish. Whatever else happens in the garden, at least i had radishes.

Also, for whatever reason, radishes take me back to childhood visits to Gram and Pap's house and picnic lunches on the porch. a very vague and kind of unsettling, yet comforting all at the same time, feeling that radishes and my grandparents are linked. (I never claimed to be normal)

So i plant a square or two of radishes. In spite of deciding not to waste the space on something that i don't' like to eat, somehow i get my hands in the dirt and out come the radish seeds and a few weeks later the first harvest is little spicy red bites of success and nostalgia. 

totally unrelated, i found a recipe to lacto-ferment radishes and i'm gonna try it once they get a little bigger (http://www.culturesforhealth.com/lacto-fermented-radishes-recipe/)