Experiment: Radishes in Peat Pellets

acara 2/12/2011, 10:40 am

After the newb radish fiasco last fall, I decided to see what would happen if I actually left the radishes in the peat pellets.

End result after 40 days ...EPIC FAIL

It seems the radish DOES NOT have enough "umph" to get out of the mesh wrapping & the end result is the development os forced above-ground, resulting in severely undersized/malformed buld. Additionally, about 50% of the crop suffered splitting.

Short story .... evidently you can start them in peat pellets, but you need to cut off the mesh & transplant after the first week.

Megan 2/12/2011, 10:43 am

Or, maybe it just wants to be planted direct. Wink

Many common radishes aren't much bigger than a pellet, and that is probably the problem... it's not getting any bigger, so it doesn't try to bust out.

I am going to try a large radish this fall and see how that goes. I want to try some of Blackrose's radish chips!

boffer 2/12/2011, 10:55 am

Hopefully the mourning period won't be too long, and you'll soon be ready to try again!

I just wanted to point out that it can be normal for the bulb to develop above ground. 3/4 's of the bulb exposed is not uncommon.

I haven't tried transplanting radishes; I would think the taproot wouldn't fare well.

**camprn** 2/12/2011, 12:41 pm

acara wrote:It seems the radish DOES NOT have enough "umph" to get out of the mesh wrapping

When I used mesh wrapped pellets, I ALWAYS removed the mesh when transplanting. Peat pots that have no mesh will allow for root growth through the side of the pot.

I do not use the pellets any more because of the extra expense and the added step of mesh removal.

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Experiment: Radishes in Peat Pellets

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