I guess I can put these questions in two threads, but they are so closely related, I’ll put them in one
Kohlrabi:
I’ve planted kohlrabi but don’t know anything about it. When is it harvested? How big do the bulbs get…if I wait too long will they get woody? How do I know I’ve waited too long?
I’m in southern wisconsin.
Radishes:
How come I only get about a 40% yield on my radishes? I never get a good crop. Most of them never form nice root bulbs, they just send out a taproot that isn’t too useful. Of course if I try to wait longer, the roots just get woody
Ah, radishes, a subject near and dear to my heart. After three failed crops of radishes, I finally got a crop that actually bulbed.
My first mistake was planting the seeds too close together. Now I plant them 2 inches apart. Second mistake was planting them in a flower bed. Bugs ate the second crop, the third crop only had about two plants that bulbed. I think this was due to the soil being too hard. If a radish root runs into a lump of earth, it won’t bulb. Also, even though I fed the plants with Miracle Grow, my soil may not have been of good enough quality to nourish the radishes.
My fourth crop I planted in a large shallow pot with potting soil, widely spacing the seeds and making sure I only dropped one seed in each hole. Every seed became a delicious radish. I hope this helps!
Kohlrabi is proof of god. If you can wait–I usually can’t–pick em when they’re about the size of a tennis ball. A little bigger is OK, but like the Tootsie Roll Pop Owl, I’ve never let one get big enough to see if they ever get woody.
Are you thinning your radishes enough? You need at least two rounds of thinning, once when they just start coming up, and once when they are a bit developed. Keep them a few inches apart. I’ve never had soil or insect problems, so I can’t help with that.
And I agree that tennis ball size is about right for kohlrabi. I’m not planting them this year because I can get them too easily from the farmer’s market, and they are a low yielding crop, with a lot of space needed for only one bulb. Eggplant, peas, beans and tomatoes do better for me. But I did grow them in NJ where they were more expensive.