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Have you ever grown Radish in your garden only to forget to pick them early enough for the roots to be optimally delicious?
When they grow for too long they get very woody and lose their distinctive flavour.
Well, don't pull them out to consign to the compost heap just yet.
You can let them continue to grow until they begin to produce dainty little flowers.
Flowers that are edible and make a nutritious and colourful addition to any salad.

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Sometime after the flowers begin to appear, the plant no doubt having sprawled all over your garden, small green pods will begin to grow. These will swell into sizable, bulbous and, to start with, rubbery feeling seed factories.

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If you enjoy the taste of Radish root then you will find little to no difference when eating these seed pods.
They are best eaten raw just like fresh peas but you can cook them into dishes such as stir-fries and curries.
Our two-year-old loves "Bicy" (Spicy), as she says, straight off the plant and so do we.

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Be careful though as similar to the root if left too long they will grow woody and lose their flavour.
In the picture below the pod on the far left is at optimum eating. To the touch, it feels soft and rubbery and can easily be bent side to side. Conversely, the pod on the far right has toughened up to the point that it tastes a bit like eating crunchy cardboard.

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As a basic rule if the pod feels hard to touch and has changed colour from a verdant green to green-white or with ruddy orange spots and splotches then it is not worth eating. Best to leave it on the plant to grow seed that you can harvest in a month or so.
In the picture below you can see the cross-sections of a pod that is not good to eat, on the left, and one that is perfect, on the right.

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Last season Capt'n decided to try and pickle a bunch of pods, an experiment that worked well enough although a few things were learnt. Mainly that older pods should stay on the plant. Also, he boiled the pods before pickling them and this caused a significant loss of flavour. So this season he has tried a different approach.

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Picking all of the young and supple pods to be found then washing them in cold water Capt'n prepared a jar and other ingredients. Measuring out enough pods and apple cider vinegar to fill a jar he also added fresh chopped garlic, whole pickling spice, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper as well as some homegrown mustard seeds and poppy seeds.

Pouring the vinegar into a pan and quickly boiling it Capt'n then poured it back over the jarred mix and sealed it with a lid.

Now the jar will sit in the pantry for at least a month to mingle before we can see how well this seasons experiment has worked.

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Thanks for reading and remember that 'Ye ARRR what ye eat!"

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Check out some of our previous posts below (we haven't been here long so don't have much to share so far).

Food

Gluten free Pancakes recipe.
Testing out Bacon and Egg Pies.
Keeping warm in winter with Mulled wine.
A not so traditional Tortilla Española de Patatas.
Spicy Fruit and Vegetable Soup video.
Food Porn 1. 2. 3.

Homesteading

How to grow Carrots to save seed.
Saving Tomato seed.
Keeping healthy Chickens.
Building Potato boxes.
Growing Purple potatoes.

Being Creative

Learning Photoshop GIF animation: 1. 2. 3.
An original short story with a sci-fi theme by the Capt'n. Once Upon a Blue Moon.
Messing with Macro photography.
Journals of a Space Pirate in KSP (computer game)1. 2.

Pirate Playlist

Worldwide Adventurers sing stories of Piracy.
Heavy Mahogany! The Dread Crew Of Oddwood.
'I Am A Cider Drinker' by Alestorm.
'The Pirate's Gospel' by Alela Diane.