Things You Won't Find in a Grocery Store: Radish Greens and Seed Pods

Aside from the handful of crisp, perfectly purple gumball-sized radishes I harvested on May 4, my radish harvest was a bust this year (due to root maggots, ew), until...

I discovered that the spicy roots aren't the only parts of a radish plant you can eat. First, I tried sautéing the greens. You might be thinking, "Wait a minute! Don't radish greens have tiny little scratchy hairs on them? Ew."  That's what my first thought was. I will also add that my radish greens had tiny little holes in them from flea beetles. It wasn't looking promising. Still, I brought piles of greens inside, washed them, cut them up, and cooked them with butter, garlic, and dried cayenne peppers. I ended up adding lots of black pepper after they were done too. We were also eating pasta and tomato sauce for dinner, so we ended up adding the cooked greens on top of the pasta and then topping that with cheese. (It's possible we could have cooked and eaten an old sneaker in this manner and enjoyed it just the same.) They were very good. It always feels good to add green stuff to dinner. I will certainly never compost my radish greens again!

I let my radish plants go to seed, so this means I have radish seed pods. I actually prefer these seed pods to the radishes! They taste just like radishes, only juicier. 

I had almost given up on radishes completely until these discoveries. Maybe someday I'll discover the secrets to a root-maggot-free radish. I would grow radishes for their greens and pods again next year, especially because they are an early, fast-growing vegetable.