GROW YOUR OWN SOIL DRILLS - TILLING AND BUILDING THE SOIL WITHOUT BREAKING A SWEAT
The Daikon Radish is a friend to many!
Gardeners, food enthusiasts, and permacuture homesteaders all agree, the Daikon Radish is an incredible plant. Here on our homestead, the "soil" is hard and rocky. It would take you a long time and a lot of effort to till it, and you would need one powerful machine or a pick-axe to do the job. When I have as much work to get done as I do, I'd rather not do it all myself.
Anytime that I am able to enlist plants or animals to help get the job done, it is a huge bonus for us. I share the mentality of @bluerthangreen when it comes to utilizing the resources that we have been given upon this earth in a way that benefits everyone involved. Pigs, goats, and even radishes all have specific niches to fill and jobs to do, so when we are proper stewards of the earth and work with the natural characteristics of the plants and animals around us, incredible things can happen.
As a gardener, I enjoy reaping the return on my investment and I enjoy delicious, home-grown food from a trusted source. Radishes can be tasty anyway, but when they are grown in hot weather, they really heat up. Unlike many other radishes, the Daikon can grow to some impressive lengths. The one I am showing in this post is "just a little guy."
Since plant life feeds so much other life, it is important to make sure that you create areas in which your plants can thrive. The Daikon does this in many ways. First off, the deep roots grow quickly and break open the ground. If the radish is left to finish its life-cycle and die in the hole that it was planted in, the roots decompose rapidly and feed the microorganisms living in the soil. In this way, it is not just opening up the soil, but building the soil as well.
Also, the top of the Daikon is also impressive. It can be planted as a cover crop because the leaves of the radish grow thick and long, blocking out the sun for other plants that may be trying to grow in that area. Since everyone hates weeding, why not grow a plant that fights the weeds for you?
Of course you can still pull and eat the radishes. I love to do that, but I also share. The leafy tops make a good treat for our rabbits when fed to them in moderation. It is a great way to mix up their diet a little bit while still providing our own food.
I like to call Daikons my "Soil Drills" and am amazed at the work that they can do. I long for rich, organic soil to grow my food in, and am pleased with the role that Daikon radishes will play in that goal. Not only will these radishes be used for food for my family, they will break up the soil, build the soil, fight the weeds, and feed the rabbits while they are at it! And all it takes to get that party started is to plant a seed!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-edible-soil-drill
Congrats on being my first fulllength read on Steemit! Haha. I'm new. Anyway, I was wondering, how little of water can radishes survive on? It seems like it would be a good way to srtart out some areas on my 20 acres, but we do not have water rights, so irrigation for large or many areas is a no-go. Do you have to really dig much to plant them in the firs t place?
I like the idea of using them as a cover crop and soil building. How do you think ground squirrels would like them? They're real pains out here and we have no garden this year due to them. (We're going with raised beds next year!)
Thanks for the informative post! :)
New here too. I used tillage radishes along with legumes as a fall cover crop when I was converting a couple of acres of former dryland farm ground back to native grasses when I bought my place three years ago. I'd just broadcast seed with no tillage in September on the high plains. I imagine the birds ate quite a bit of the seed but you can find it in bulk at reasonable rates.
They survive on pretty little moisture -- my locale average slightly over an inch/month for Sept/Oct before the temperature is sufficiently cold to winter kill them. I only ate a few and left the rest to winter kill and decompose over the winter. Make nice little empty pockets for the spring moisture to sink into the ground like a natural aerator.
I just scattered them on the existing ground on my acreage and have not watered them. The ones in the post were from the garden, but others are growing on my land without "being planted" or watered, I just spread the seed.
Not sure about ground squirrels, but they may leave them alone.
Yeah these little buggers, they're like mini prairie dogs, they eat everything.
So you didn't even have to scuff up the land?? Awesome!
Good work on getting the word out about how things like daikon radishes can help bring about the restoration of land and produce quality food for humans and animals alike. Is that particular little guy from seed you just planted a month or so back?
Yup, it was just a seed a few weeks ago, look at that little guy now!
That's impressive! I need to buy a few thousand pounds of seed to cover the land as weed control.
Love your stuff. Love your donation.
you should check out this post :P
https://steemit.com/gardening/@mrainp420/the-birth-of-a-beautiful-garden-and-some-hot-peppers
I've heard of them but never knew what they looked like. Great post.
Now you know! Thanks!
cool idea, been reading with interest. Self reliance is quite interesting: Have you heard of the open ecology project ? Looks right up your alley! it is basically open sourcing a whole bunch of machines to establish civilization, a lot of agricultural ones, and the idea is to be able to bootstrap your whole economy with it. Making your own production tools like machine shop tools instead of buying them you make your own, all the way up and down the value chain. Fascinating stuff.
Interesting, I had not heard of it specifically. Thanks!
Thought you'd like it. Would love for these guys to start steeming so I could support the design and prototype building! They have been really grinding away since years. Not easy to realise but seems so potentially great!
wow....I love "green"....upvote and resteem for the "Soil Drills"
Thanks for the gardening related post. Just a quick note about tilling here... Tilling might be ok for a little garden but for farming it's terrible. Till farming causes a highly significant loss of top soil.
Wow, I thought I knew a lot about gardening but here is something I did not know. Thank you so much for the education. Now you see this is why I like this community STEEMIT. and there are no ad's.
I've not heard of using a radish in this way. It's a very good idea that sounds like it may have been used for thousands of years. I've tried to dig on ridge tops and other things for commercial construction, you can imagine the strength that must take for these radishes to break that kind of thing up. It's amazing if you think about it thanks for the good article and I'm going to follow you look forward to more articles like this
You can use daikon radish instead of cabbage in your next batch of homemade coleslaw. You can bake, broil or steam them. You can use them in just about any Asian flavored dish such as stir fry. They are delicious in place of ordinary radishes. There are many different varieties of radishes, there is even one that can reach 100 lbs called Sakurajima Mammoth and they are delicious with a sweet mild flavor!