Daikon radish

Sun

Full sun; tolerates light shade, but roots develop best with at least 6 hours of direct sun.

Water

Keep the root zone evenly moist, not waterlogged. Drought produces coarse, pungent roots, and sudden heavy watering after dry weather can cause splitting.

Soil

Deep, loose, well-drained soil, ideally sandy loam, with a pH of about 6.0-7.0. Stones, compaction and fresh manure can cause forked roots.

Height

1-2 ft (0.3-0.6 m) in leaf; flowering stems may reach 3-4 ft (0.9-1.2 m).

Spread

0.5-1 ft (0.15-0.3 m)

Flowers

If allowed to bolt, produces white to pale pink or lilac flowers, often with purple veins, in spring or summer.

Foliage

A rosette of coarse, green, roughly hairy leaves, usually deeply lobed with a large terminal lobe.

Growth

Fast; many varieties reach harvest size in 50-80 days, while large winter types can take longer.

Care needed

Low

• Pollinators
• Low allergen
• Edible

Northern hemisphere months. In Australia, shift them by six.

Difficulty

Easy

Toughness

Fairly tough

Pick your zone, country, light and whether you have pets.

1. Planting day

   0.5 ft (0.15 m)

2. After 1 year

   1.5 ft (0.45 m)

   full size

Full size in one season.

From a typical nursery size, at an average rate for this kind of plant. A rule of thumb, not a forecast.

Cats and dogs

Safe

Growth rate

Fast

• Sow directly where roots will grow; transplanting can distort the taproot.
• Loosen soil deeply and remove stones before sowing; use mature compost rather than fresh manure.
• Thin seedlings to about 4-8 in (10-20 cm) apart, following the variety's recommended spacing.
• Water regularly through dry spells so the soil stays evenly moist.
• Avoid heavy nitrogen feeding, which encourages leaves at the expense of roots.
• Use insect mesh from sowing, and rotate with non-brassica crops.

Pruning. No routine pruning is needed. Remove bolting plants unless you want flowers or seed, as their roots soon become woody.

Pull roots when they reach the size stated for the variety, before they become woody or spongy; check the exposed shoulder and lift a sample rather than waiting for flowering. Loosen the soil with a fork beside long roots to avoid snapping them, then remove the tops for storage. Pick a few young leaves for cooking, but leave most foliage until the root is harvested.

Early spring

Prepare loose, stone-free soil; sow only spring-adapted varieties once the ground is workable.

Spring

Thin seedlings, fit insect mesh and keep spring crops evenly watered.

Early summer

Harvest spring crops promptly before heat and long days encourage bolting.

Late summer

Make the main sowing for autumn harvest, allowing enough time for the chosen variety to mature before hard freezes.

Autumn

Harvest mature roots and sow in mild-winter districts where autumn and winter provide the main cool growing season.

Early winter

Lift remaining roots before the soil freezes hard; keep trimmed roots cool, humid and frost-free.

• Plant in orderly rows in a kitchen garden for an autumn root crop.
• Follow early peas, lettuce or potatoes with a late-summer sowing to keep vegetable beds productive.
• Use the coarse green rosettes beside finer-textured carrots and onions in an edible border.
• Grow shorter-rooted varieties in deep containers where garden soil is shallow or stony.

Garden styles it suits: Potager (kitchen garden), Edible landscape, Homestead, Farmhouse, Japanese and Family-friendly.

Plant it with: Lettuce, Spinach, Spring onions, Carrots, Dill and Calendula.

Wildlife: Flowers provide nectar and pollen for bees and other insects if a few plants are left to bloom. Leaves also feed caterpillars and flea beetles.

• Flea beetles pepper young leaves with small holes: cover the bed with fine insect mesh immediately after sowing and keep seedlings growing steadily.
• Cabbage root fly or cabbage maggot larvae tunnel into roots: use insect mesh with sealed edges and rotate away from previous brassica beds.
• Clubroot causes swollen, distorted roots and wilting: avoid moving infected soil, improve drainage and keep brassicas out of affected ground for several years.
• Premature bolting produces woody roots: use varieties suited to the sowing season, favour late-summer sowing for winter types and avoid drought stress.

The roots and leaves are edible for people and are not known to be toxic to cats or dogs in ordinary small food quantities, though large amounts can cause digestive upset. Daikon is not generally regarded as a poisonous plant for horses, but large quantities of radish or other brassica foliage are unsuitable feed and may cause digestive or blood disorders.

• White turnip (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa)

  Most white turnips have a rounded or flattened swollen root with a narrow tail, rather than daikon's long cylindrical or tapered root. Turnips have yellow flowers; daikon flowers are usually white or pale lilac.

• Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana)

  Horseradish is a persistent perennial with large, mostly undivided, elongated basal leaves and branching roots. Daikon usually has lobed, rough leaves and a single swollen root;

Daikon comes from Japanese words meaning 'large root', while longipinnatus refers to the plant's long, pinnately divided leaves.

Propagation. Grow from seed sown directly about 0.5 in (1 cm) deep. For seed saving, allow selected plants to flower and develop dry pods; radish varieties can cross-pollinate, so saved seed may not come true if other radishes flower nearby.

Accepted botanical name

Raphanus sativus Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus is an older name for Raphanus sativus.

In the US and Canada

Introduced in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Hawaii, the lower 48 states, Pacific Basin and Puerto Rico.

Sources: GBIF (CC BY 4.0) and USDA PLANTS. The care and design notes are LandscapeGPT's own.