Saving Seeds from Radishes

Did you know that radishes will grow over 4 feet tall?

I planted a pot of radish seeds in the greenhouse this December. The seeds took a month or perhaps even 6 weeks to germinate in the cold temperatures. While they were growing, I was actually able to eat 4 or 5 small ones, pulled out in the name of “thinning” before the majority of the plants started to grow seed stalks. I guess the winter weather was a bit too much stress for them.

Instead of just throwing them out, I decided to let the radishes go to seed…as an experiment.

The seed stalks kept growing and growing and growing. After growing about 4 feet tall, the stalk in the center of each radish opened up a flower very similar to what a bolted broccoli looks like. Some of my radishes grew white flowers and some grew pink flowers, although all the seeds came from the same packet. Some are still flowering now, almost 6 months after putting the seeds in the ground.

Now that most of the flowers have died back, seed pods are beginning to grow. They look like tiny green beans at the moment. I’ll update this post when they have grown up and dried so I can harvest the seed.

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FOLLOW-UP POST ADDED BELOW:

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Here is an update to my previous post about saving radish seeds.

Dried radish seed pods

I let the radish growth die naturally and dry outside to a nice tan color.  I picked off the stems with the seed pods and had what you see above.

Green pod has turned light brown

Just like a pea or a bean, each dry pod contains a few radish seeds.  Let’s open one up, shall we?

Hooray, seeds!

I expect the nice round ones are probably more viable than the flat wrinkled ones, since the ones I originally planted were all nice and round.

The verdict is that, yes, I can save radish seeds.  And until I absolutely need to, I won’t.  It’s a lot of extra work to get these seeds from a plant that would otherwise be picked in 25 or 30 days.  I’ll consider it knowledge tucked away for a rainy day.