Tuesday 21 March 2006

rad·ish

Radishes are wonderful, especially when then are the first vegetable (excluding herbs) that one harvests from one's new garden!

We were going to a friend's house for jugged hare (delicious!) and we all agreed a fairly light starter of fairly light nibbles would be a perfect way to ease into dinner. I took a couple of things, of which radishes were one.

I had heard many times how good radishes were eaten with fresh butter and salt. I love radishes, butter and salt, so putting them all together was not a risky proposal.

They were delicious, especially when you indulge yourself and recreate the radish flowers that your mother used to make when you were little.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a cool photo Emma! And I agree with you, they are a great vegetable!
I myself used radishes last week. You will soon see how ;-)

Emma said...

Thanks Bea! I thought you might be a girl who would - I look forward to finding out!

Elizabeth said...

I love that photo!

Radishes from the garden, you lucky thing! I hope you added radish sprouts from thinning the radishes to your salads.

-Elizabeth, in Toronto, Canada

P.S. Jugged hare... sounds amazing

Emma said...

Thanks Elizabeth! Unfortunately I did not thin them before the caterpillars got most of them - I will know better next time!
It was amazing - very rich!

Elizabeth said...

Those darn caterpillars! Are they butterfly caterpillars or moth caterpillars? Whichever, they can be a real problem, can't they?

Try spraying the crops in the early morning with water and a bit of biodegradable dish soap. As long as you spray before the sun heats up, you won't bother the plants AND you can get rid of the creepy crawlers - they really dislike the soapy water and generally fall right off the plants.

-Elizabeth

Emma said...

Thanks for the tips Elizabeth. They are cabbage butterfly caterpillars. I got some garlic and pyrethrum spray from the organic shop - seems to be OK - but the dish soap sounds much better - cheaper too!

Elizabeth said...

Just make sure the dishsoap is biodegradable and NOT the kind that is antibacterial. You don't need very much soap. (Sometimes I wonder if it's the water spraying that the caterpillars don't really like....) And yes, it's much cheaper than the garden centre versions. From what I can tell, it works out to about the same thing.

I'm not familiar with cabbage caterpillars so don't know how big they are. But if it doesn't gross you out or offend your sensibilities too much, it's probably not a bad idea to crush them after they drop off the vegetables.

Actually, come to think of it, dishsoap may be better because pyrethrum will kill ALL insects including the beneficial ones.

-Elizabeth

P.S. I wonder if the eggshell trick I use to deter slugs might help too. Crush eggshells and scatter them on the earth beside the plants. The soft bodied crawlers don't like to crawl over the sharp shells.