Quarantine gardening - aka preemptive gardening!

This Corona Virus has all of us on edge and working to see what we can do to help our communities and our neighbors.  There are worries about grocery stores running out of supplies and hoarders buying it all up and not sharing, and where the money will come from to buy anything when some of us aren't working during the quarantine.  There are some things that you can do to help yourself and maybe your neighbors too that are pretty quick and easy.  One of them is to grow a radish salad!  Radishes are a great "quick crop" as they germinate and come to size quite quickly!  Some radishes germinate in as little as 4 days, and you can have real radishes as soon as 15-20 days!

Here is my messy box of seeds, I try to do an inventory once a year and make sure I have "good" seed - nothing that is too old.  I let it get out of control this last couple of years though and I am regretting it now!

But I WAS able to find my radish and lettuce seed.  A couple of different flavors of both so I chose the ones that would grow best in a 3" deep flat.

So, I prepped my flat with soil that has finally thawed in the greenhouse enough to fill at least this flat (and maybe another one - you will need two eventually for this one).  Yes- the flat is sitting inside a plastic cake box top - it works great to keep the water in and also you can cover it with a little plastic wrap to aid in germination if you need to.

Here it is!  Ready for the seed!

These are "Helios" radish.  I chose these ones because I have more than one packet of them and they will grow great in a flat, they have great flavor and they are just slightly spicy, and nutty without being hot.

I mixed them with two kinds of lettuce.  When I'm planting them outside, I usually plant them with carrot seed, and Im doing it with the lettuce for the same reason, when the radishes are grown and you pull them it automatically thins the lettuce/carrots.  It works great!  Carrots won't grow well in a flat like this so lettuce it is  hence "radish salad".

Once the flat is prepped(make sure you moisten the soil) mix the seeds in the radish packet and pour half of them into your hand.  Save the rest for later.

Sprinkle the seed over the top of the flat and lightly sprinkle some dirt over them.  Put in a decently warm spot (not necessarily in the sun - just needs to be warm until the seeds come up).

Leave them for a few days and watch for your radishes to come up!  

Once you have radishes, and when you pull them remember you can use the tops just like you would dandelion or spinach.  They are delightful!  Then you just have to wait for the lettuce to be ready!  

I use a second flat and when I pull the first set of radish, I plant the second flat so I will have fresh salad for months to come, even in the winter!  

Some of the other things you can do, and easily are to get a hanging basket of strawberries.  You can hang them just about anywhere or don't hang them even - they can set on a counter top in the sun - check with your local greenhouse to find one if you don't have one started. Cherry Tomato too! Kids love them as much as they do the radish flats!  It's also a good time and way to start teaching them how to grow their own food, where it comes from and how to take care of it.  Makes for great learning, great food, and good times!