Sacramento Digs Gardening: Use radishes, onions for fast food

Onions can be grown from seed, but you won't get them as fast as from sets or starts. Bunching onions, center, are green onions or scallions and will grow faster. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

These easy-to-grow favorites offer something edible in a hurry

Want quick gratification from your vegetable garden? Plant radishes and onions.

If you can find the seeds, Cherry Belle radishes

are a good choice for a quick crop. (Photo courtesy

Burpee Seeds)

The first is renowned as a fast-growing crop; Cherry Belles can be ready to pull in just 22 days.

Notoriously slow, onions are just the opposite; to reach full size, onions take months.

But onion sets – those little mini-bulbs – sprout almost immediately and grow edible-size greens within two weeks. A little later, they can be used as green onions (bulb and all).

Add a few lettuce transplants and you have salad makings in under a month.

Not all radishes are super-fast. Daikon and heirloom watermelon, for example, can take 60 days to reach maturity. Read the package or online description when planning your garden.

But their fast-sprouting quality makes radishes useful as living row markers.

From seed, plant one row of radishes parallel to a row of something slower to sprout, such as heirloom carrots, beets or bush beans. Space the radish row about 4 to 6 inches from the other row. The radishes will sprout quickly to remind you of the position of the other row. Harvest the radishes as they mature, usually weeks before their companions. That also allows more space for the developing veggies in that second row.

Or use the radishes to outline an area planted with squash or melons; again, the radishes will be long gone before the vines or bushes need their space.

This radish trick works best in spring and fall. Planted in summer, radishes often go directly to flower without forming an edible root.

Onions work well as a perimeter planting. Their fragrance wards off several kinds of bad bugs. If allowed to flower, their blooms attract abundant bees.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

starts seeds gardening Sacramento vegetables onions backyard produce salad spring planting radishes transplants

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Food in My Back Yard Series

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of March 16

Make the most of dry breaks between showers. Your garden is in high-growth mode.

* Pull weeds now! Don’t let them get started. Take a hoe and whack them as soon as they sprout.

* Prepare vegetable beds. Spade in compost and other amendments.

* Prune and fertilize spring-flowering shrubs after bloom.

* Feed camellias at the end of their bloom cycle. Pick up browned and fallen flowers to help corral blossom blight.

* Feed citrus trees, which are now in bloom and setting fruit. To prevent sunburn and borer problems on young trees, paint the exposed portion of the trunk with diluted white latex (water-based) interior paint. Dilute the paint with an equal amount of cold water before application.

* Feed roses with a balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10, the ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium available in that product).

* Prune and fertilize spring-flowering shrubs and trees after they bloom. Try using well-composted manure, spread 1-inch-thick under the tree (but avoid piling it up around the trunk). This serves as both fertilizer and mulch, retaining moisture while cutting down on weeds.

* Cut back and fertilize perennial herbs to encourage new growth.

* In the vegetable garden, transplant lettuce and cole family plants, such as cauliflower, broccoli, collards and kale.

* Seed chard and beets directly into the ground. (To speed germination, soak beet seeds overnight in room-temperature water before planting.)

* Before the mercury starts inching upward, this is your last chance to plant such annuals as pansies, violas and primroses.

* Plant summer bulbs, including gladiolus, tuberous begonias and callas. Also plant dahlia tubers.

* Shop for perennials. Many varieties are available in local nurseries and at plant events. They can be transplanted now while the weather remains relatively cool.

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