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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Garden checklist for week of April 19

After this midweek storm, start getting serious about spring gardening. Flowers are blooming about three weeks ahead of schedule. That includes weeds!

* Get ready to swing into action in the vegetable garden – if you haven’t already. As nights warm up over 50 degrees, set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash; wait on pumpkins until May. Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias. Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom. Late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Give citrus trees a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants. If leaves look yellow, your tree may need an iron boost -- apply some chelated iron fertilizer.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden needs nutrition. Give shrubs and trees a slow-release fertilizer. Mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost, which helps the soil, but keep it a few inches away from trunks and stems.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

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