what I know about radishes so far...

Lately I am in the food groove. The kids and I go to the u-pick a couple of times a week to pick berries. These days we have to go early to beat the heat. We are, in fact, going tomorrow because right now is a very exciting berry time. There are many different varieties of berries in season right now and many of them will not be in season long- black raspberries (black caps), boysenberries, Marion berries... When I am not u-picking I am thinking about what to do with all of the berries and other produce- lots of veggies- that have currently taken hold of my life. We have a basket of veggies delivered from a local farm every Friday and of course my garden keeps on coming with unbelievable abundance. I guess I should start to believe it, because it is right there in front of me! And we go to the Portland Farmer's Market most Saturday mornings. I used to buy most if not all of my produce from the market before this basket subscription and my garden. Now I buy a few items each week (like fresh tuna!), although with more and more fruit coming in season I will doubtless buy more- cherries, apricots, nectarines and melons!

This week I made two different kinds of jam- more raspberry and some really delicious boysenberry. And raspberry syrup, which turned out to be really sweet jam. Oh well. And some egg rolls. And I bought pickling spices and hope to make carrot and beet pickles. And I am going to try some kimchi. I have tried other fermented products, but all of them were dairy- yogurt, Keifir, creme fraiche. I am not the biggest fan of dairy and no matter what I try, too much of it makes me and my kids ill. So I am going to move on to some vegetable ferments. Kimchi looks interesting and I can use some of my radishes.

Which brings me to what I know about radishes so far... First, of course, that you can eat the root and they can be quite spicy. Eva introduced me to radishes a couple of summers ago. I had never bought them before because I thought they were too spicy. And they were- at first. Then they kind of grew on me, but only a little bit. Eva kept insisting we buy them until they became a sort of staple, not quite like carrots, but definitely more common for us than say Kohlrabi. That brings us to this year when we planted some in the garden way back in February. When we first started harvesting the radishes, Eva tried them and promptly spit them out. "Yuck! I don't like spicy things." Great, I thought. What am I going to do with all of these radishes now?

The first thing I found was of course you can eat the leaves, which I read are "better for you" than the actual root. Not sure about that because aren't roots supposed to be really amazing as well? It seems kind of like a moot point at this stage of the game for me but I still love to know what is edible. The next thing I learned is that if you let them (and when I say *let* I mean that you don't pick them when people normally pick them) they will flower and they have such lovely pink flowers I brought them into the house and put them in a vase. You can eat the flowers, of course. The flowers will grow and grow into a very large plant and vine out and then they will make seeds. The seed pods are edible too and if you eat them your mouth will once again recognize the spicy radish taste. In fact all of it including the flowers taste like radishes. The seed pods are VERY spicy. I thought about pickling those but I would need to find someone who likes very spicy things. Dad? Are you interested in some spicy-pickled-radish-seed-pods? Not your average Christmas gift I guess.

Anyway, I am pretty excited to try making the kimchi, never mind that when I tried it many years ago I did not like it. I didn't like radishes then either, though. And I certainly didn't know most of what I know about radishes now. Maybe kimchi will end up being more than just a fun project. Maybe I will make it once a week and end up using it as a staple in my home... Ah well I can dream can't I? And all of this from radishes!



Yellow broccoli flowers with pink radish flowers in the background.