The Capsule Garden

The radish bulbs are showing some sign of bulking up. It remains to be seen how big they'll actually get. I get the sense that I'll probably end up with some sort of long, thin radish. I wonder how the taste will be too. I'm a bit worried I'll end up with what is known as a woody radish. This means the radish bulb will be tough. Hence the term woody or like wood. I think I may have let the soil dry out a few too many times. I think after these ones finish growing I will attempt another round of radishes. The weather is getting warm and will be hot soon so I'm not sure how well those would grow. I may need to look into some mulch to put on top of the soil and help retain moisture in the soil. Anyway, the plants are looking nice. It almost seems the cracks I observed a few days earlier might be an outer layer of the radish peeling off? I'm really not too sure. I did watch another time lapse video of radishes plumping up on YouTube and it did appear they lost an ou...

The march to 30 days continues as we come upon day 26 of radish growth. I ended up taking the photos a bit later in the day again as can be told from the lighting. The radishes are starting to really develop the a fleshy root. I'm not expecting them to end up as perfect round radishes. But they're getting thick or maybe thiccc with three C's. But also, I sadly noticed some cracks in the radishes. Both of them have a slight cracking at the base near the dirt. The radish itself isn't split open or anything exposing the inside of the root so I'm hoping that maybe this is just a cosmetic thing. There have been definite variations in the soil temperature so perhaps that had a hand in this. Also maybe the radishes aren't buried deep enough. I could see the soil possibly being too hot since there isn't a whole lot in the small pot and that windowsill can get quite hot in the full and direct sunlight. Anyway, I'll just have to keep observing the radishes and see...

I've reached day 25 of my radish growth journey (to make things sound dramatic). It's been quite the journey for these plants. The weather has had a few dramatic swings from very chilly temperatures to blistering hot temperatures. The radish greens are very lush right now and appear very healthy. No sign of any pests which is great. Pests are amazing at finding things to pester despite plants being indoors. I've included the standard side view and top view of the plants along with a close up of the radish root portion and a close up of the center of the leafy growth on the left plant.  Side View Top View Radish close-up! Leafy Growth

Day 24. Four days away from four weeks of growth. Today is a hot day and with lots of sun on the windowsill. I watered the plants twice today already to avoid them wilting in the afternoon sun. The pot is pretty small with not a whole lot of dirt so I can understand hot the dirt dries out so quickly in the hot sun. I've also read online that if radishes dry out and don't get enough water, it can cause the radishes to develop cracks. Also, I observed the leaf growth a bit closer today than the previous days. The plant on the left has five leaves not counting the embryonic leaves and the plant on the right has four leaves but which are larger than on the other plant. Nothing super exciting but just an observation.  Side View Top View Plumping up!

Day 23 of the two radish plants' growth! I'm going to include a close-up shot of the reddish-root portion of the plant here on out so the growth of the root can be observed more closely. The colo contrast between the leaves and the root is becoming quite striking. When initially planting the radish seeds, I was wondering how could these possibly be ready in 30 days but here at day 23 the plants are getting large. I can't wait to see where the plants are on day 30 though! Will I be enjoying a crisp, delicious radish come day 30? In reality, I think it'll take a bit longer than 30 days to produce something worth eating.  Side View Top View Yummy!

Here's the update from day 22 of radish growth as of 5/6/2020. I ended up taking these photos a bit later in the day... er evening, as you can see it is dark outside. A bit of a different lighting situation. It gives a different look at the plants in my opinion. The bright red of the stems is much more noticeable in these photos. Once again, I included a close-up of the stems of the radish plants hopefully to show the slight thickening. I feel I'm starting to see a bit of rounding where the base of the leaves meet the stem. One thing I want to mention about radish plants is they appear to require a good amount of water. I water these plants every day by giving the soil a good soaking of water. One day I was a bit late in water the plants and found the leaves already starting to wilt. After giving the plants a drink of water, the leaves become lush and vibrant again.  Side View Top View Is that the start of a radish that I see???

Here are the pictures from day 21 - 5/5/2020. There isn't too much of a noticeable difference from day 20. The leaves do appear to have grown larger and are draping over a bit more. In the top view shot, the leaf from the plant on the right is overlapping a large portion of the plant on the left. The reddish stem of the red plant is very noticeable from the overhead shot as well. I thought it would be fun to do another close-up shot of a leaf to give another good shot of how hairy these suckers are.        Side View Top View Hairy radish leaf!

We've reached day 20 of the radish growth as of 5/4/2020! Aside from the nice reddish color of the radish plant stems, I think I'm starting to observe a thickening of that stem as well. I'm hoping this is the start of the large bulb root. I'll keep my eyes on this part of the plant. I took a close-up of the stem area of the plants for day 20.  Side View Top View Stem close-up

I've gotten a little behind in posting the daily pictures of the radish plants. It's amazing how time can just fly by you despite having to stay at home all day with the shelter in place. Anyway, these pictures are from 5/3/2020. The leaves are just a bit larger this day. I think mistakenly, I thought the leaves grew out of the center in pairs. But it seems after the first two true leaves that the subsequent leaves are growing out one at a time. I was able to observe sort of a spiraling of the leaves growing out of the center of the plants.  Side View Top View

The plants as of 5/2/2020 reached 18 days of growth. That growth has been impressive to me at least. I'm new to growing radishes except I think back in elementary we grew a few radish seeds in a Styrofoam cup of dirt as a science experiment. From what I've read online, I may be looking to fertilize the plants soon. The second set of true leaves have now reached about the same size as the first set were on Day 12. Here's the photos from Day 18.