This story, or these stories, end up starting perhaps eighteen months ago with an accidental rescue operation.  I was taking my mother to the new Asian supermarket in the area so she could see all of the wonderfully different things there.  We were in the produce area and there were a few vegetables that spoke to me.  It was how fresh they were, how not dead, as if they were saying ‘but, but, we want to keep living’.  Little leaves were growing even as they lay on the shelves.  Man’s inhumanity to vegetables on full display.  One was a clump of ginseng roots, the other a fairly large Korean radish.  I bought them with no intent except to put them back in the ground.  Outside in the parking lot I kept telling them “It’s ok, it’s ok – no one is going to hurt you now”.  Perhaps it was March of 2014.

I put them both in my vegetable garden, the ginseng in a shady back corner, the radish in one of the front boxes.  By May I had almost forgotten of the rescue operation when up vibrantly came a torrent of shoots from the radish.  Because she was mature and had so much radish energy stored these shoots progressed very rapidly to flower, light purple flowers, and lots of them, and all summer long they bloomed.  When I noticed the radish activity I check on the ginseng.  They too (there were five of them in the package I got) had put up leaves and even looked as if they were fixing to flower (they had buds) in June. I had to consider the rescue a big success.  Come mid-June though some critter must have taken a fancy to the ginseng.  Chewed off at the ground it was.  Rabbits sneak into the garden often enough, they are the number one suspect.

Anyway Momma Radish kept on blooming, as I said, and started then to produce what looked like miniature edamame, pods with multiple seeds – it is probably that I’d just never beheld the radish circle of life before.  I gathered some thirty to fifty of these pods from late summer to October.  During that summer we had also gotten a puppy and by the time autumn came he was fully enamored of digging.  Somewhere along the line he dig up Momma Radish, who was going to die shortly of natural causes anyway, and she served as a retrieval toy for a week or so.  A full life indeed.

The winter was among the worst in the memory of the living hereabouts.  Ten feet of snow, and often bitter cold too.  That’s not exactly part of the radish story, but it sweetens any tale of resurrection or resurgence.  When finally winter receded, and it was late, well into April I was quite behind in my normal seed planting rhythms  I don’t think I got a seed into the ground until late May.  The radish seeds though, they germinated explosively (in a figurative sense).  They pushed out leaves and down roots and you’d think they were dandelions on steroids the way they grew.  By early July here is one of them.

I had quite a few and so I planted some here and there, did a little more research on them (the basic link is daikon), gave some to family, and stood back in wonder.  It was a busy summer work-wise, I did not get to pay attention day to day the way I would have liked.  I heard that one that I had given to my mother was doing very well.  They harvested it in August I think and it was enormous.  I hear that they are pretty low in nutrition though, that one should not be so amazed by their abundant size because they pack about as much nutrition as a regular sized tomato – maybe, if they’re lucky.

I’ve not harvested mine yet.  I bought a big bucket of first quality half-sour pickles recently though, really just for the brine, because I think they will pickle well.  That’s a lot of radish pickles I’m signing up for.  I sure hope they’re good.

A few pictures then, now that you have fuller context.  First the protruding mass of one, I think it’s the same one as in the July picture.

Then the seed pods with some purple flowers too.  You know I’ll be gathering said pods before pickling time.

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and lastly, the dancing swirl of the dervish radish flowers – it would be a music both slow and wild, with a constancy of strength beneath it that belied the light movement and the delicate flowers.  Do click on the pictures.  Seeing the detail bring the story to life.