White Icicle Radish, You're So Big

      When my white icicle radish plants bolted in the warm weather in the spring, I let the plants flower and set seed pods.  Then to make room, I pulled the radish plants, cut off the seed stalks, and hung them upside down from a trellis I use for beans.  And forgot about harvesting the seeds when they were ready.  I think I actually was planning to see what would happen naturally.  A few radish plants sprouted from those seed stalks, and I let them grow, and grow, and grow.  The plants have survived the several frosts we have had, so today I plucked one of the radishes before we get a really hard freeze.

White icicle radish, December 5th,  2012

      There were three or four radishes.  You can see the one I picked in the shot above.  In the picture it looks like two radishes, but it was just one long radish with a taper in the middle.

      You might say what is the fuss about this big radish by looking at this picture.  I was rather disappointed when I saw the shot later on the computer.  But it really is a case of not having anything in the picture as a reference.  So here is a little help in the next shot.

That is a whopper of a radish

      White icicle radishes are normally picked at the 4 to 5 inch stage.  The literature suggests that a radish left too long and allowed to get so big may be hollow, woody, or spongy.  And the literature was right, this radish was hollow in the middle, and spongy out to a solid 1/4 to 3/8 inch exterior.  The flavor of the solid part is fine, so rather than slicing across the radish in the normal fashion, I will cut the radish into four three inch chunks.  Then cut those three inch pieces vertically, throwing away the spongy core.  That will yield attractive and tasty strips.  I will eat produce out of my garden that I wouldn't touch had I bought it at the store.  All organic.  Fresh.  Scrumptious.