Daikon in the country: how to plant and grow Japanese radish

Daikon appeared in our gardens not so long ago, but quickly gained popularity due to its unpretentiousness, high yield and health benefits. It is often called Chinese or Japanese radish, and the eastern neighbors know a lot about healthy eating. This crop is easy to grow in open ground, but sometimes greenhouses are also used to get a very early or, conversely, late crop.

Planting daikon seedlings

Daikon is the closest relative of radish and radish. It would seem that there is no need to grow it through seedlings, especially since the growing season is only about three months. However, everything is not so simple. The fact that this unpretentious plant of the cabbage family is a culture of a long day. This means that in the middle of summer, when the daylight hours are 15-17 hours, generative organs (flowers and fruits) grow rapidly, but root crops are almost not formed. Therefore, if you sow it in the garden in the spring, you can’t get anything but flowers and seeds.

If you plant a daikon in spring, it will bloom by mid-summer

Daikon has to be sown in the garden in the second half of summer, when the day is on the decline, and in this case it forms beautiful large and succulent root crops to frost. But if you want to get a crop by the end of spring or early summer, you have to deal with seedlings, planting it, depending on the season, in open ground or a greenhouse.

Soil selection and preparation

When planting daikon seedlings, it is best to use large peat tablets, sowing 2-3 seeds in each, and then remove the extra seedlings. Daikon really does not like transplantation, and a peat tablet is planted in the garden entirely, along with seedlings, so the roots are not damaged at all. If there are no tablets, it is worth taking peat pots, which are also planted in the garden without removing seedlings from them. In them, as in other containers, it is necessary to place suitable soil.

For sowing daikon, it is better to use peat pellets with a diameter of 36 or 42 mm

Daikon is extremely undemanding to the composition of the soil in the garden, but when growing seedlings, clay soil should not be used: the soil should be loose, light, breathable, but well retaining moisture. Depending on the terrain, its composition may include various components, but it is desirable that peat is one of them: it ideally meets all the requirements. You can add turf soil, sand and even sawdust to peat.

If the origin of the soil is doubtful (it is not bought ready-made in a specialized store), then after mixing the components it must be decontaminated. It can be steamed in a gas oven for 30-40 minutes or, much easier, spill with a pink solution of potassium permanganate to a wet state. This is done a few days before sowing the seeds so that the soil can dry out later.

For soil disinfection, a sufficiently low concentration of potassium permanganate solution (2%) is sufficient - it should be pink

The soil is poured into pots with a height of at least 10 cm: even during the growing of seedlings, the daikon manages to grow quite long roots. In an extreme case, sowing in a common deep box is also possible, but it will be necessary to extract seedlings from it when planting in the garden very carefully.

Seed preparation

Not all varieties are suitable for seedlings. If possible, you need to choose those that form not very long root crops, but rather short oval or even round ones.

For growing seedlings, it is better to choose round varieties of daikon

In principle, you can sow daikon with dry seeds, it will definitely sprout. But experienced gardeners, in order for the shoots to be friendly, are advised to pre-warm the seed material. For this:

1. Seeds are dipped in hot water (about 50 ^aboutC), where they are kept for half an hour (and, in fact, until the water cools down).
2. After rinsing with clean cold water, put them in the refrigerator overnight.
3. The next day, slightly dried and sowing.

Seeding dates for seedlings

Sowing dates depend on the climatic conditions of the region and on where the daikon will be grown before harvest: in open ground or in a greenhouse. This is a cold-resistant culture, that is, adult plants are not afraid of temperatures close to 0 ^aboutC. But it will be necessary to plant seedlings in the garden when the frosts end and the weather is relatively warm. By this time she should be a month or a half.

Based on these calculations, if we are going to get the crop in open ground, then in the conditions of central Russia, Belarus and most of Ukraine, sowing seeds in pots should be carried out in early April. In the Ural and Siberian regions, the dates are shifted by a couple of weeks towards the summer, and in the south (Kuban, Lower Volga) you can sow in the middle or even at the beginning of March.

The time of sowing seeds for seedlings for greenhouse cultivation of daikon is completely dependent on the quality of the greenhouse: in heated greenhouses, crops can be obtained all year long, therefore there is no great sense in growing seedlings. And the planting of seedlings in unheated is carried out when the temperature inside is at least 10-15 ^aboutC. Starting from the estimated period of 35-40 days, seeds should be sown for seedlings.

Daikon can be grown all year round in the heated greenhouse

Sowing rules

Daikon seeds are quite large, so sowing is not difficult.

Daikon seeds are not too small, they can be sown and individually

Produce it this way:

1. Seeds are sown to a depth of about 2 cm, and watering the soil before or after sowing is the choice of a gardener: it depends on the density of the soil. As a result, the seeds for pecking should leave in a very moist substrate.
2. After sowing, the pots or boxes are covered with glass or a transparent film and put in any place: until the shoots, the daikon does not need light, and the temperature should be room temperature.
3. Shoots will appear, depending on the variety and temperature, in 4-7 days. Immediately after this, the glass is removed and the seedlings are transferred to a cool, well-lit place.

Seedling Care

Caring for a daikon in the seedling period is elementary: in fact, there is nothing to do except watering. True, we must make sure that he has enough light and is not too hot.

"Enough light" does not mean that you need lighting in the morning or evening. On the contrary, daylight hours should not be long, otherwise instead of root crops, a flower garden will be obtained in the garden. But during the day, a sufficient amount of natural sunlight should fall on the pots.

But watering is needed systematic: the slightest drying of the soil for daikon seedlings is fatal. If sowing was carried out in a common box, shoots should be thinned out as they grow, so that they do not interfere with each other. After two weeks, seedlings can be fed with a weak solution of complex fertilizer, although this is an optional procedure.

10 days before planting in the garden, seedlings are tempered, accustomed to fresh air (taking to the balcony). If it grows in separate peat pots or tablets, at the time of planting it can be only two true leaves: in established warm weather, it is better to transfer the daikon to the garden than to keep it in the apartment. But if these are plastic pots or, moreover, a common box, you have to wait until at least four leaves develop.

Daikon seedlings will be ready for transplantation from the total capacity when there are at least four true leaves on the seedlings

Daikon transplant to the ground

It is possible to transfer seedlings to the bed when the daytime temperatures steadily rise to at least 10 ^aboutC, and at night the frost will stop. The soil should be prepared in advance, better - in the fall. Daikon grows almost everywhere, but better - on light sandy loam or loam. Not all varieties normally grow on clay soils: long-fruited ones cannot break through heavy soil, therefore varieties with round or oval root crops are planted on clay.

Since many daikon varieties grow to a length of 60 cm or more, and it is unrealistic to dig ground into such a depth with a shovel, many gardeners act differently:

1. Having dug up a bed on a bayonet of a shovel, they shift the earth to the side.
2. Then digging is repeated, introducing fertilizers into the lower layer of the earth (1 m² - a bucket of humus, 50 g of superphosphate and a liter can of ash).
3. The land laid aside is returned to the place and the bed is leveled.

Daikon needs a lot of space, so there is no less than 30 cm distance between the holes, and preferably up to half a meter. Planting seedlings in the usual way, without deepening, at the same level as it grew at home. If you have to remove it from boxes or pots, you need to do this extremely carefully and with a large lump of earth, having previously completed holes of the right size in the garden. Seedlings are well watered and mulch the soil slightly with any dry bulk material.

Daikon can not be thickened: in most varieties, even the leaves are very large

Seed planting

Sowing daikon into the ground is very simple, and since this is done in the second half of summer, there is time to prepare the beds. Usually by this time harvested salad products and even garlic. It is precisely after garlic that it is very convenient to sow daikon seeds.

Preparation of beds

Daikon is able to grow on any soil, but since most varieties have very long root crops, the earth must be dug up as deep as possible. Daikon is sown in the summer after any previous culture, which means that the soil by this time is already relatively depleted, and the natural biological balance has not been established. Therefore, you need to dig a bed with fertilizers, but this in no case should be fresh manure (it is very good if manure was introduced under the predecessor in the fall). In summer, you can make a well-rotted compost (up to a bucket of 1 m²) and mineral fertilizers, but it is better not to get involved in them.

In the right compartment - rotted compost, which you need to bring to the bed under the daikon

Superphosphate acts for a long time, and it must be applied in advance, and there is not much time left before sowing the daikon. You can add a little azofoska to the soil (40 g per 1 m²), and it is better to limit yourself to wood ash (pouring a liter jar on each square meter of area). Ash is also good at repelling cruciferous fleas and various caterpillars. Before sowing, the bed should be leveled with a rake and outline landing grooves.

Seed preparation

Almost all daikon varieties are suitable for summer outdoor sowing. The specific one should be selected based on the characteristics of the soil on the site: in the case of heavy soil, one must buy seeds of short-fruited varieties.

Preparing seeds for sowing is usually not required, although some gardeners warm the seeds in hot water for 20-30 minutes. The author of these lines, who has been growing excellent daikon crops for the past three decades, has never done this: seeds bought in a reliable store always germinate quickly and without any problems.

Landing time

The right time for sowing daikon is the main condition for this crop to give a normal crop of root crops, and not go out of color. Wrong sowing dates are the main reason that the harvest of this vegetable fails. Therefore, the timing is almost independent of the region, be it the Moscow Region, the Urals or the Kuban: sowing should be carried out when daylight hours have already decreased by at least an hour, and this happens both in the south and the north in the second half of July. Another question is that in the northern regions (Siberia, North-West Russia) the daikon may not have enough warm time to give a full-fledged crop, but this question is solved only by the choice of varieties.

So, if any varieties can be sown in the south after July 15, then in the middle zone of Russia it is better to abandon the latest varieties, and in the regions with severe climatic conditions, choose only the early ones, such as Sasha, Misato Red, Misato Green. In these varieties, the growing season does not exceed one and a half months, and already in September they can be harvested. And in order to completely insure against flowering, they can be planted even in early August.

Photo gallery: early daikon varieties for central Russia

Trying to sow a daikon directly in the garden in the spring is futile: this can only be done in the south and no later than the beginning of April. Then the culture will have time to give a good harvest; True, it will not be stored, but for the early replenishment of the body with vitamins, it will fit perfectly. May crops are performed only for the purpose of obtaining seeds.

Rules and landing patterns

The scheme of sowing daikon in open ground is the same as in the case of planting seedlings: in rows of 30-45 cm (depending on variety), between rows of 50-60 cm. A denser planting is possible only for the smallest varieties and if harvesting is supposed to be gradual, by pulling not fully grown plants. The procedure is as follows:

1. It is more convenient not to draw holes, but to make sowing grooves in the entire length of the bed with a depth of about 2 cm at a distance of 50-60 cm from each other.
2. If the ground is not very wet, grooves before sowing should be shed well from a watering can without a strainer.
3. In grooves, you can put seeds in 2-3 pieces a few centimeters apart. A few days after the emergence of seedlings, it will be clear which of them should be removed and cut into a salad. (By the way, if there is sufficient distance between the seedlings, then in a week and a half they can be carefully dug up and planted, but only in cloudy weather!)
4. Having sprinkled the crops with soil, it is necessary to compact it slightly.
5. If there is no intense heat, you can no longer water it, otherwise it is better to water it from a watering can, but with a strainer.
6. It is not necessary to cover summer crops; in a few days, seedlings will appear as well. But to throw over a bed of mowed grass (without seeds!) Will be very good.

Seeds can be sown in the furrow at any distance, depending on how many are available.

Daykon care in the garden

Daikon almost does not require serious care, it only needs to be watered often. Drying of the soil even for one day threatens that the yield will drop sharply, and the root crops will become stiff. In the heat, watering is necessary almost every day, and one should not be afraid to overfill: even with the formation of puddles this radish will not decay. To slightly reduce the frequency of watering, you just need to periodically loosen the soil slightly, at the same time removing weeds. Even better is to mulch it with a thin layer of peat or good humus.

Most daikon varieties stick out very much from the ground, sometimes half the height of the root crop. At first, that part of it that rises above the ground should be slightly spudded, this makes the vegetable only tastier. When the harvest time is near, hilling is stopped.

Most daikon varieties stick out very much from the ground, so it’s better to

On fertile soils, the daikon gives a quite decent crop even without top dressing, it lacks the fertilizers that were introduced during digging. In other cases, after the formation of 4-5 leaves, the bed is sprinkled with wood ash before watering, and half a teaspoon of azofoska is brought next to each plant.

If the seeds and soil were not infected with anything, diseases on this radish are extremely rare, but it has a lot of pests. This is primarily the cruciferous flea, as well as the cabbage fly and whitewash.Marigolds, planted nearby, more than half solve this problem. In addition, periodic spraying with infusions of hot pepper or tobacco dust, as well as dusting with ash after watering, are effective.

Marigold sown next to daikon is not only beauty, but also protection

Harvesting is carried out as necessary, but when the first frost occurs, it is time to completely empty the beds. It is possible to pull out the daikon only on light soils; most often you have to use a shovel or pitchfork. It should be borne in mind that the root crop sometimes goes underground for half a meter, if it is damaged during excavation, it will not be stored. Therefore, even such a seemingly simple operation is best performed together.

Video: daikon growing tips

Features of planting in a greenhouse

When growing a daikon, a greenhouse may be required in two cases:

• if there is a desire to get a crop very early, when in the open ground the soil is not yet ripe for planting;
• if you live in a very cold region, where, during the July sowing in open ground, even the early daikon varieties will not have time to ripen before the onset of severe cold weather.

Greenhouse cultivation is not at all more complicated than usual; everything is done exactly the same. The timing of planting seedlings or sowing seeds in a greenhouse is determined by the quality of the greenhouse and the region: for example, in Japan, daikon is grown in greenhouses year-round, controlling the temperature and giving additional illumination in the winter months. In an unheated greenhouse in the middle zone of our country, daikon can be sown in late March, in the north - from mid-April. For autumn cultivation, sowing in the greenhouse is carried out throughout August, but in the north, perhaps these dates can be shorter, depending on how well the greenhouse keeps heat in autumn.

If we are talking about spring cultivation of daikon, then it is worth taking early varieties in order to have time to plant cucumbers, peppers or tomatoes in the vacant place after harvesting. Moreover, the place in the greenhouse must be protected, and early ripening varieties are usually more compact, they can be planted even if necessary according to the 10 × 20 cm pattern. It is advisable to maintain a temperature of about 18 after sowing ^aboutC, and after the emergence of seedlings, immediately start opening the vents to temporarily lower it to 7-8 ^aboutC. This measure causes rapid root growth. After a week, you should set the optimum temperature: 16-18 ^aboutHappy and 10-12 ^aboutWith the night.

Caring for a vegetable in a greenhouse is usual:

• regular watering
• loosening
• weed removal.
• frequent airing: this regulates the temperature and eliminates the risk of disease.

Since the soil is rarely changed in a greenhouse, it quickly depletes, so it is advisable to feed daikon once a week: first with a solution of complex mineral fertilizer, and with the beginning of root crops loading, with an infusion of ash.

Most daikon varieties take up a lot of space in the garden, and it’s a pity to occupy a greenhouse for it.

Daikon predecessors when landing

When answering a question about the best and undesirable precursors of vegetables in the garden, gardeners usually have in mind two points:

• the predecessor should not have the same list of diseases and pests with the crop in question;
• both cultures should have significantly different "food" preferences, that is, the predecessor should not greatly deplete the soil with those elements that are required in large quantities by the second culture.
  

  In order not to get confused about what crop to plant for, you can use the ready-made crop rotation table

In addition, some gardeners themselves enrich the soil with certain nutrients. For example, it is known that nitrogen-fixing bacteria live on the roots of peas and beans, which absorb nitrogen from the air and put it into an organic state.

So, it is clear that daikon can not be planted in the garden where any cruciferous crops have grown over the past couple of years:

• any kind of cabbage,
• radish,
• turnip,
• radish.

Daikon grows well after carrots, cucumbers, any pumpkin and solanaceous crops. But by the middle of summer, these vegetables still grow in full swing in the garden, and it’s wasteful to keep the land idle in small areas for so long! Therefore, they try to plant daikon after those crops that are already harvested by the end of July.

Among the vegetables that leave the beds early, for a daikon, the best predecessors are:

• peas,
• salads
• bow,
• garlic,
• new potatoes.

The Japanese radish is indifferent to other cultures.

What can and cannot be planted daikon nearby

There are various tables of correspondence of garden and garden crops to each other, based on the similarities and differences in agricultural technology, as well as on the nature of the main diseases and pests. For example, it is well known that onions and carrots coexist perfectly on the same bed, because they mutually kill the enemies of their neighbors - onion and carrot flies.

For a daikon, onions are considered to be a good neighbor, which with their phytoncides drives away cruciferous fleas and butterflies. Other friendly cultures:

• carrot,
• beet,
• any pumpkin culture: zucchini, squash, pumpkin, cucumbers.

Do not plant daikon next to such plants:

• peas,
• any kind of cabbage,
• Strawberry.

Video: mixed planting of daikon and other crops

Features planting daikon varieties Sasha and Minovashi

Currently, there are a large number of daikon varieties, not only of Japanese origin, but also of Russian selection. Perhaps, one of the most popular are the imported representative of Minovashi and the domestic - Sasha. They are quite different from each other both in appearance and in optimal growing conditions.

Daikon varieties Sasha

It is believed that daikon Sasha has increased resistance to shooting. However, with too early summer sowing, he will still respond poorly to a long daylight hours. But due to the high precocity during sowing at the very beginning of August, he manages to form high-quality root crops in any climatic conditions. Even under the most adverse conditions, its growing season does not exceed one and a half months, and with good care, the crop is ready 30 days after emergence.

Sasha has not very large round root crops (weighing from 200 to 400 g and about 10 cm in diameter); they look more like ordinary white radish in appearance. In the phase of full ripening, about half the fruit rises above the surface of the soil. The taste of dense crisp pulp is characterized as excellent, without bitterness, which allows it to be used in diet and even baby food.

Sasha takes up little space, he does not have a very high yield, but he is tasty and keeps up very quickly

This variety can be grown both in open ground and in the greenhouse. Due to the ultra-precocity, Sasha can be sown not only at the end of summer for autumn consumption, but also in early spring, along with the usual radish. Growing it through seedlings makes no sense. However (from the point of view of the temperature background), Sasha does not really like serious fluctuations in day and night temperatures (the pulp of the root crop coarsens), therefore, in those periods and in those climatic zones where this is possible, the timing of sowing, both spring and late summer, should be to adjust.

During the summer planting of daikon Sasha, you can sow it between rows of not yet harvested, but almost finished onions, killing two birds with one stone:

• on the one hand, the area will be saved (and in the first one and a half weeks this daikon does not take up much space);
• on the other hand, the onion smell will deter pests from the young foliage of daikon.

Since this variety does not form very large plants, it can be sown densely: between seeds there is enough distance of 15-20 cm, between rows about 25 cm. However, it is usually sown much more often, and as the shoots grow back, thin out: young daikon foliage adds spice to any summer salads.

Two weeks after sprouts, the daikon Sasha begins to form a root crop, therefore, if not all thinning has been carried out at this point, pulled out later copies can already be crushed into salads along with the roots.

Daikon varieties Minovashi

This mid-season Japanese variety, included in the State Register of the Russian Federation, stays in the garden for about two and a half months. Root crops of cylindrical shape grow very long, weighing up to 1.5 kg, are characterized by excellent taste. It has increased resistance to shooting. Since Minovashi forms a long root in the first weeks of its development, it is almost impossible to grow it through the seedling stage (for this, very deep pots are simply needed).

Minovashi - daikon of the "classical" form, long, one of the most delicious varieties

Minovashi can be immediately sown with seeds in a greenhouse or in open ground. Due to the relatively long growing season, spring cultivation in the middle lane is only possible in the greenhouse, where it is planted at the very beginning of April or a little earlier. You can try to sow in the garden (at the end of April), but it is better to choose more early varieties for this, and leave Minovashi for autumn consumption and sow in the second half of July.

The plants of this variety are quite large, so the minimum possible distance when planting is 30 × 60 cm. In addition to these distances, it should be borne in mind that the root crop penetrates the ground to a considerable depth. Therefore, if the fertile layer is small, before planting in the designated places, experienced gardeners break a hole with a crowbar to a depth of at least half a meter and add local fertilizers there (a liter can of compost, a little ash, a teaspoon of azofoska). Then the hole is covered with soil and the daikon is sown in the usual way.

In the second half of July, Minovashi is planted after harvesting onions or garlic, making a full mineral fertilizer in the garden. The processes of sowing and caring for Minovashi do not differ from those for other varieties, but the harvest must be done very carefully: long root crops are very brittle, sometimes, in order not to break, you have to dig them out almost like garden shrubs.

Video: Minovashi variety daikon crop

Daikon is a healthy and tasty vegetable, its root crops are striking in their size, and agricultural technology is striking in simplicity. In fact, for the successful cultivation of daikon, only two conditions are needed: timely sowing and abundant watering. Therefore, getting a decent harvest of this Japanese radish is quite within the power of anyone, even a beginner, a summer resident.