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Everyone knows that green radish is a very useful root crop. It is rich in vitamins and has a number of useful properties. Even in ancient times, radish was used as a medicinal plant. Therefore, culture is often grown to create folk remedies against various diseases. However, the most useful for the body is a vegetable grown by oneself. Therefore, the cultivation of radish in the open field must be carried out especially carefully and in accordance with all the rules.
Features of care
Radish is an unpretentious plant that does not require special care. Therefore, growing a radish in your own garden will not require much work and physical costs from you. It will be necessary to water the individuals, thin out their thickets, loosen the soil and eliminate all weeds, as well as fertilize the plants with special dressings.
Radish care also includes thinning. For the first time it is carried out after the formation of a pair of leaves in young shoots. At the same time, it is worth leaving a distance of 0,06–0,07 meters between root crops. The next time thickening is warned a month later.
How does outdoor care work? When growing a root crop in unprotected soil, weeding between rows is carried out three to four times per season. For the first time they are loosened to a depth of 0,04 meters, the second time – to 0,08 meters, the next – to 0,1–0,12 meters.
How to grow
How to grow a radish? Before growing and caring for a crop in open ground, it is necessary to prepare the soil in advance for this. In spring, the soil is dug up to the depth of the layer with humus. After that, top dressing is carried out with mineral fertilizers, urea, superphosphate and potassium chloride.
The technology for sowing seeds of a summer variety provides for a procedure in early May, and a winter variety in June.
The seed is placed in holes with a depth of 0,02 meters, keeping a distance between rows of 0,3-0,4 meters. If the soil is not sufficiently moistened, then after planting it is necessary to water the soil abundantly.
Watering
Watering the root crop is carried out regularly, but not more than once a week. The winter variety is moistened only three or four times during the entire development cycle. Radish needs a large amount of water: about a bucket per unit area. The main thing is the regularity of the procedure. After all, watering after a dry hot period will lead to cracking of root crops. With a lack of moisture, the root becomes stiff, after which it can not be eaten. Mulching will help keep the liquid in the ground and reduce the number of procedures.
Additional fertilizing
How many times do you need to fertilize a radish and how to do it correctly? For the entire development cycle of the plant, top dressing is carried out twice. For the first time – after the formation and opening of the cotyledon leaves. The second time feeding is carried out 7 days after the first.
Due to the fact that the ripening period of early varieties is short, it is necessary to feed the crop only with nitrogen-containing fertilizers. For example, 0,2% sodium or calcium ammonium nitrate.
Late-ripening varieties are fertilized once a week with mineral fertilizer solutions (0,06 kilograms of superphosphate, 0,02 kilograms of urea and 0,015 kilograms of calcium chloride). At the same time, a bucket of water is consumed per 20 m of a row. Plants need nitrogen in large doses, so complex fertilizers must be alternated with nitrogen fertilizers. Three weeks before harvest, all top dressing should stop.
Manure is not used as a top dressing for radishes, as it stimulates the “division” of the root crop.
Pests and diseases
Unfortunately, even if you properly care for the culture, it will not be possible to completely prevent its disease. In particular, radish pests make themselves felt. Therefore, the detection of parasites and the fight against them is a necessary measure to obtain a high-quality root crop.
Often the plant is infected with clubroot, cabbage mosaic, felt disease, powdery mildew, downy mildew, white rot, black leg and underwear.
Kila is an ailment of a fungal nature that provokes the appearance of spindle-shaped or spherical outgrowths on the roots. They gradually turn brown, and then begin to rot. Affected individuals slow down growth and may even die.
Due to mosaic infection, the veins on the leaves of the vegetable are pulled together, and the organs themselves are deformed and change shape. Further, a dark green edging appears on the veins, and dead white areas form.
Felt disease has the appearance of brown or purple spots that appear on the fruit. After that, colonies of fungi appear in place of the spots. The most comfortable environment for the development of the disease is warm and high humidity.
Powdery mildew appears on the ground parts of the culture with a grayish coating, which gradually turns brown. Affected leaves curl and dry out, the individual itself slows down growth or completely stops it.
Peronosporosis (downy mildew) has the appearance of chlorine spots on the top of the leaf, which become oily and yellowish. Over time, they turn brown, and a purple coating appears from the bottom of the organ.
The black leg is manifested by a thinning of the leaf rosette and the top of the fruit.
White rot provokes the removal of colored pigment from the affected parts of the plant, then the affected areas become covered with a fungus and become like cotton wool.
Belle seems to cover the organs of culture with oil paint, after which the tissues become brown and dry. Leaves with fungal spores become swollen and deformed.
The most dangerous insects for radish are: cruciferous flea, scoop (garden and cabbage), cabbage fly, moth and whitefish, wireworms and stem nematodes.
The cruciferous flea beetle is a beetle with jumping hind legs that feeds on the leaves of crops. The pest can easily feed on young plant sprouts.
The caterpillar of the scoop or cabbage whitefish feeds on leaf pulp, and the larvae of the cabbage fly damage root crops, causing them to rot.
Nematode larvae feed on the juice of crops, as a result of which they lose their usual shape.
Wireworms consume both leaves and fruits of radish.
Performing the shaping
Diseases of a fungal nature are usually defeated by treating cultures with solutions that contain copper. Usually it is copper sulfate, Bordeaux liquid, copper chloride oxide. The technology of processing plants is described in detail in the instructions for preparations.
Mosaic is not so easy to defeat. There is no drug for it. Affected plants are simply removed and burned, preventing the spread of the disease to neighboring individuals.
Insects are usually eradicated with insecticides, which are readily available from specialized retail outlets.
However, prevention is the best help – pre-sowing tillage and seeds, as well as compliance with the rules for growing radish.
So, planting a radish on your own plot is worth it because of the wide range of its application. Culture is easy to manage. It is enough to cultivate the soil and carry out regular watering with top dressing. It is worth noting that a significant advantage of the plant is the ability to survive frosts.
Video “Growing radish”
This video will tell you about root crop varieties, predecessors, sowing and caring for crops.
