Guest Post by Hannah Zozobrado
Throughout the spring semester as an editorial intern at the Washington Gardener Magazine, I had the pleasure of learning how to plant, monitor, care for, and harvest radishes and carrots.
My experience in gardening was little to none prior to being an intern with this publication, but I got to witness the wonderful growth of my plants, albeit small. Due to tricky weather, I initially planted them a little later than expected. The seeds are planted are Carrot 'St. Valery' and Radish 'Japanese Wasabi' -- both from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
I first planted seeds in their respective spaces in the plot on March 25th:
The left side of the divide are the radishes, and on the right are the carrots. I placed more than a few seeds an inch or so apart, in case a few of them failed to sprout.
By April 8th, I found that the radishes and carrots were beginning to sprout! However, along with them were Yarrow plants that began to creep into the planting beds from the plot's borders. I removed the encroaching Yarrow and also thinned both tiny seedling crops — as it turned out, there were many more effective seeds than I had originally anticipated.
From then until the end of the month, I did the occasional check-in, which mostly involved watering, thinning, and weeding. During that time frame, the weather seemingly flipped between being rainy and sweltering hot.
When I visited the plot a month later on May 6th, I witnessed great growth — the radish tops were healthy and green -- and the carrot greens made their gradual slow appearance.
I noticed that the growth near the bottom end of the plot
—where the yarrow weeds once were— was significantly less than the plot’s top
end. Baby radishes began to form and were harvestable by the time our semester
ended.
What are you growing in your edible garden this week?
About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 13th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above (at the top, left on this blog).
About the Author:
Hannah Zozobrado was an editorial intern with Washington Gardener Magazine during the Spring 2024 semester.
