When to Harvest Radishes

Knowing when to harvest radishes is key to growing healthy, delicious, sweet-tasting radishes that you can use in many recipes. If you don’t know when to harvest your radishes, you will likely pick them when they are too small (a waste) or too large, at which point their flavor turns bitter, and their texture becomes fibrous.

Knowing when to harvest radishes is a combination of data and feel. When planting radish seeds, mark the day you plant the seed and, the days to maturity of the variety on your calendar. Days to maturity are the number of days it takes for a crop to grow from seed to harvestable crop in ideal conditions. Although the days to maturity can range somewhat depending on climatic conditions, this bit of information is one of the most important things for a grower to know when growing a crop for food. Radishes grow very quickly, and for some varieties, you can harvest as early as three weeks from their planting date. That is fast! By marking their date of maturity on the calendar, you can know that your radishes are likely to be ready or close to ready in that time frame.

The other part of knowing when to harvest is to harvest one and give it a taste test! Radishes should be crunchy, slightly peppery, sweet, and never bitter or fibrous. It’s very easy to overlook some radishes in the garden. If you let them sit too long, they will get too big, and their flavor will decline. They can even become fibrous and hollow inside if left too long in the garden. Radishes should be harvested frequently to guarantee that you always have fresh, sweet radishes to enjoy in your kitchen!

Succession plant radishes to have a continued harvest.

When growing radishes, it’s a good idea to succession plant them every week for a continued supply. You don’t want to be overwhelmed with the crop or left waiting several weeks for the next round of radishes to be ready to harvest. Use our free Succession Planting Guide to track when to plant and when to harvest your radishes.