 Welcome everyone, thank you so much for joining us this evening. My name is Kendra Sakamoto, I'm one of the librarians at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. So I recognize that this evening we're all in different places. I would like to acknowledge that the library sits on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Squamish Nation, the Slewa Tooth Nation and the Musqueam Nation. Gardening for food is deeply rooted in having a close relationship with the land. The Squamish Nation in particular in this area of West Vancouver have been the careful caretakers of these lands forever. I personally strive to learn from those who have always lived in harmony with the land, and I think that helps me in my gardening practice as well. So tonight we are delighted to welcome Joanna Wilkie. Joanna has been foraging gardening and cooking from a young age, along with teaching music and the Garden Buddy program. Joanna teaches the gardening and cooking in season course through the BC Brain Wellness Program at UBC. Welcome Joanna. Thanks so much Kendra. Let's see if I can share my screen here. All right. Good evening everyone, and thank you for coming tonight. I hope you're sitting in a comfy chair with a nice drink in hand. It's a pleasure to speak to you on such a crunchy, colorful subject. I don't really consider myself to be an expert on either caretaker radishes, but I've grown them for much of my life in various locations. So I've learned a lot from my experiences and let me tell you, if you look up caret radish failures, I think I've experienced a good lot of them. So if you come here frustrated and in need of encouragement, you're in good company. I'm going to have a look into both crops in terms of how, when and where to grow them, what sort of conditions they like, great varieties of each, trouble shooting, and delicious ways to enjoy them. Please feel free to send questions into the chat because we'll save some time at the end and hopefully answer them for you. I'll also ask a few times for you to type something into the chat and share with our audience as we go along. One of my earliest garden memories is growing carrots in our small backyard plot. I don't remember planting, tending or harvesting them, but what I do remember is one day we woke up to see that our garden had been vandalized overnight and the culprits had pulled out every last carrot and left them lying on the ground. I remember being quite upset as a child. Another memory I have is pulling a carrot from my neighborhood friend's large vegetable garden, washing it and biting into it and being surprised at how different it tasted from the usual store-bought carrots we got in our lunches. I couldn't have been more than, I don't know, seven years old, maybe. These were two of the driving experiences that led me to want to grow produce as an adult so that my children could also form some of these lasting sensory experiences. I'm not sure where my love of growing radishes emerged from. I think I just tried growing them with my kids and was absolutely delighted by their different Easter egg colors and beautiful spring crunch with only the slightest hint of heat. Again, they were so different than the dried out overly spicy radishes I'd tasted from the supermarket, which I wasn't really all that fond of. No question. If I were to draw upon your experiences, they might be similar. If you're able, please type a few words into the chat to describe your memory of either vegetable, whether it be positive or negative. And Kendra will maybe read out a few of them for us. So you can just pop into the chat, your memories of carrots and radishes. I'll share mine. I didn't grow up with a garden, but I've had a garden for a few years since living here. And the first year I grew radishes, I had this bumper crop of radishes. And I learned for the first time in my life, you could eat radish greens. And I love them so much. I love radish greens more than I love radishes. Great. That's awesome. Right. Someone has shared their memory of woody radishes. Oh, yes. Not good. What does that mean? Fighting into a stick. Yeah, we'll get there. Okay. Right. Fresh local carrots at roadside stands tasting better than candy. Yes. Yes. Similar to yours as a child remembering how great carrots tasted from the garden, remembering helping my mom plant both, twisted and contorted carrots. It was always fun to grow the Pakistani kind of carrots with the surprise variety of colors. Love both and always wait with excitement for the first crunch of a radish. Awesome. These are awesome memories. Thank you for putting them in there for us. And yeah, we're going to get to some of those troubleshooting things. So let's do it. As Kendra mentioned, I've been teaching gardening to a class of grade fours now for over 10 years, and carrots and radishes are crops I'd never be without. The curiosity of planting them, watching them grow, and the palpable excitement of harvesting these colorful greens is thrilling to be a part of. I get so much joy out of watching the children's wheels of delight as they pull their first radish or carrot and then search for more. One of our lessons is focused on plant parts. And it's interesting to see these nine year olds try to decide what part of the plant they're eating. Most will come up with the answer that both carrots and radishes are root crops. But I've also had children think that the bulb part of the radish is the fruit or the seed. And it makes sense. It's red and round and looks like a fruit. Most children also don't know that the parts of each plant are actually edible and quite delicious. You wouldn't think that knowing the anatomy of a radish could be helpful for growing it, but understanding the function of each plant part is extremely helpful, especially when troubleshooting. Have a look at this diagram and think about the answers you'd put into these blanks. There are the leaves, which use sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to make food for the plant through the process of photosynthesis. Sugar or glucose is produced along with oxygen during photosynthesis, and the plant uses this food to grow. So the leaves are essentially food factories of the plant. The stem helps to move water and nutrients up and down the plant and to hold the plant upright. It's like the plant's freeway. The taproot, or bulb root, is the part that we eat. Funnily enough, when you see radishes growing, it's this part of the root that will pop up out of the ground as it grows. My students often get worried by this, and unless I warn them, I'll find them trying to push the plant back into the ground. The small roots are root hairs that both absorb water and nutrients for the plant and also help to hold it in place. This is the part of the plant that will remain in the ground as it's growing. Some students are quick to mention that there are no flowers, seeds, or fruit here in this diagram. The flowers, of course, are what attract various pollinators to the plant to help it to grow its fruit and seeds. The fruit developed from the female flowers and hold the seeds of the plant. Some fruit are edible and some are not. The seeds store food for the next generation of plants in them. If you let a radish plant bolt or go to seed, you will see the flowers and seed pods develop, and that is how more plants are made. However, that is not usually our desired result when we're attempting to grow radishes. The same principles apply to carrots, with the only difference being that they don't tend to push up out of the ground as they grow. This is a good thing because if the roots are exposed to light, a chlorophyll reaction will turn it green, and even though it is still safe to eat, it doesn't taste great and will be bitter. Another question for you. I'm wondering what season or seasons you tend to associate with either carrots or radishes. Type into the chat your answer and the reason why you chose that particular season. People are typing that into the chat. I'll just share. I associate radishes with mid-fall because I find they like the cooler weather. Actually, I find that the greens are better in the fall, even though you don't get much of a radish, but I'm okay with that. Some people say fall. Some people say summer. Spring and summer for radishes, carrots in the fall. Alright, some interesting answers there. Let's find out. So we're going to start with radishes. Knowing what season the plants you're attempting to grow thrive in is not only helpful, but can also determine your success or failure. Radishes, for example, are easiest to grow in the spring, but also do quite well as a fall crop. They are not so successful during summer months like tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini. This makes them a perfect crop for us to grow at a school because they can be grown quickly and harvested quickly before school comes to a close in June. Take a look at this handy planting chart produced free of charge by West Coast Seeds. If you're not familiar with the West Coast Seeds website or as a company, I'd strongly suggest that you check it out. It was what got me on the road to growing my own vegetables with success, and it's helpful because it gives planting advice with your particular zone or area in mind. They used to only have charts for BC, but now West Coast Seeds have expanded across Canada and even into parts of the United States. I always teach my grade four class how to read this chart, and they quickly learn how to decipher the symbols up at the top and search for the plants they would like to grow. The symbols directly relate to when and how you can plant your seeds. You can see that the legend includes times when it's best to seed indoors, so right here, or direct so right into your garden bed outside. When you should transplant your seedlings that have already been grown either in your home or in a nursery, or when you need to protect your newly planted seedling from the potential weather damage, or when you can transplant but also provide some sort of protection for the little plant. If you consider our typical weather patterns here on the BC South Coast, the months of October through to mid-March are going to be wetter, colder, and with the chances of frost for snow. Here in Vancouver, our average first frost date falls around November 2nd and our last on March 28th. Some cool weather crops can actually survive these conditions quite well, but we'll do even better with a little coverage, as you'll see in my photo here, to keep them warmer and less exposed to the elements. If we scroll down to radishes, the diagram shows that you can start planting in the ground in March and continue planting up until early May, so right there, that's that planting in the ground. Then there is a gap where planting is not recommended from mid-May until August, when you can begin seeding again until October, when you'll also need to cover your seedlings. Radishes are also not typically grown outdoors during the months of November to February on the BC South Coast. Growers have found ways to get around these limitations, but with some effort and modifications of growing environments, so for most of us home gardeners who don't want to fuss around and just want a somewhat easy, productive harvest of radishes, it's best to follow these planting guidelines. In my experience, I've certainly found them to be right on the mark, though sometimes even in late March, my soil is just too cold and damp to get them to germinate well. I'd much rather wait for a bit and start them a little later in early April, when I know they're going to perform really well and come up quickly and easily. Radishes are therefore considered a cool season crop. Just think spring and fall on our BC West Coast. Knowing this fact is extremely important to have a successful harvest, and it will help eliminate a lot of your growing problems. The main reason why radishes don't do well during the summer months is the heat. They don't thrive in temperatures above 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 degrees Celsius. The plant will tend to bolt, which means the heat and the longer length of daylight causes the plant to put its energy toward producing seeds, which is the opposite of what we're after. Radishes also germinate best in soil temperatures that are between 18 to 24 degrees Celsius. When they are sown in these temperatures, they'll usually sprout quickly between 5 to 7 days, and they can be harvested in as little as 25 days. Going back to the cold, wet March seeding from the chart, you can see how these temperatures could be an issue and why the seeds might fail to germinate or just take a really long time. When the soil is boggy, heavy, and overly wet, the plants will concentrate on producing leafy tops only. Again, not what we're after. The trick to growing radishes is speed. Think in and out and repeat. Or you can space your plantings out a week apart or so to have great succession harvest. You don't want to leave radishes in the ground for long periods of time. This can produce a woody, overly spicy radish that has more potential for bugs tunneling into the root. Yuck. This may be where some of your versions come from about radishes, and no wonder. I can't tell you the difference between this version of a radish and one that's been sown in optimal temperatures, grown quickly, and harvested in mid-spring when it's juicy, crunchy, plump, and vibrantly colored with only the slightest hint of spicy flavor, if at all. With the exception of winter radish varieties, most radishes don't grow sweeter if left in the ground for longer into the cooler months, as some other root crops do, such as carrots. Have you ever heard the term called a sugarfrost? Gardeners often hope for that kind of light frost in the fall, where it just coats some of the winter vegetables enough to trigger them into hardening themselves towards the progressively cooler weather, but not enough to kill the plant. Crops such as arugula, kale, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, mizuna, beets, carrots, and even lettuce can do really well in these conditions, and you'll notice sometimes tastes even sweeter than they did in the summer months. Now let's have a look at the timing for growing carrots, because it's quite different than radishes. On our BC South Coast, the planting window is between late March, right here, and the end of August, and it doesn't have any breaks in between. Carrots can successfully be grown throughout spring and summer, but can't be planted after August because of their length of time needed to mature. In comparison to the radishes' quick three to five week grow, carrots can take anywhere between 55 and 75 days until they're ready to harvest. They're also notoriously slow to germinate. My students always think they're not going to grow because next to those quick peppy little radish sprouts, the carrot seeds just seem to sit there and do nothing until finally one day up comes a teeny tiny feathery little wisp of a thing and then another, but it takes patience and sometimes reseeding. Another difficulty when it comes to planting carrots is, again, the weather. Even though carrots can be planted in a window from March to August, if you think of how much our weather and temperatures vary in that timeframe, you can probably picture some of the problems we'll face when it comes to germination and how you might have to alter your seeding technique a little to accommodate for this. Carrots germinate best when they are shallowly sown because they're such a teeny tiny seed, much smaller than radish seeds, and they need to be constantly moist, not wet, not dry. They can also take up to three weeks to germinate. You can see how this would be less of a challenge to achieve during the temperate months of late March to June and more of an issue during the hot, dry months of July and August. If you're attempting to grow carrots in a hot, windy, and dry location, you'll need to babysit those seeds, making sure they're comfortably moist and not drying out between waterings. Sometimes it helps a little to plant more shallowly in the spring when the weather is generally cooler and wetter, and then plant a little deeper when it gets dry and hot. Plant too deeply, though, and they just won't grow at all. Some growers will protect their newly planted seeds with a row cover or even by placing a board of some sort over top. This is lifted every few days to check the moisture levels and to watch out for germination. Once the plants start to come up, the board is removed. For any of you who have grown microgreens, you'll understand this growing concept. Let's have a look at the light requirements for carrots and radishes. Since they are both root crops, they require sufficient amount of sunlight in order to grow well and produce roots. I always like to use this quick, easy analogy with my students. If you grow up for the fruit or the root, you're going to need a minimum of six to eight hours of sunshine every day. If you're growing it for the leaves, then four hours is often all you'll need. You'll see on the seed packages for carrots and radishes, it is recommended to grow them in full sun. With the varied amount of sunlight I receive on my property, believe me, I've tried to grow both crops in all sorts of different locations, always hoping for the best, but my results have shown clearly that they do indeed perform best in as much sunlight as you can give them. They will not only germinate and grow faster, they will also produce less leafy growth and more bulb, which is what you're after. Faster growth also usually means less time where bugs can tunnel into them. For me, carrots that have grown easily and more quickly between late March and early July seem to be attacked less by tunneling bugs than ones that have been left in the ground to grow for months and months. Having said all this, carrots out of the two vegetables seem to handle a little more shade than radishes do. Whenever I've tried to grow radishes in a semi-shady location, all they've produced is leaves and no bulbs. Carrots, on the other hand, will grow when shaded a little by other vegetables, albeit slower, and albeit after they've already grown to a sufficient enough size as a seedling first. I found a spot where I can plant my carrots in full sun next to my radishes, and then after I've harvested the radishes, I'll transplant in a row of cucumbers where the radishes were, leaving the carrots growing behind. If any of you have ever grown cucumbers, you'll know how big these plants get and how huge their leaves are. I grow them up a trellis, but still, those carrots at the back are pretty much shaded out by the leaves. Regardless, by the time fall comes, they're ready to harvest. It's not the ideal spot because it's a little difficult to get at them with all the cucumber vines in the way, so much so that I often just leave them be and only get to them once my cucumber harvest is over and done with. Then I find myself pulling up super ugly monster carrots that look inedible, but are actually quite delicious. These funny looking carrots came out from underneath here, if you can believe it. At first in this box, there is a row of radishes in the front and a row of carrots behind. Then when the radish is finished, I put in the cucumbers right in front and leave those carrots growing behind. This is a full sun location, but you can see they're really growing in the shade. Soil requirements for both crops are virtually the same. Fertile, well-drained, light but deep, sandy, loam, rich, and organic matter. They will also grow in heavier clay soils as long as the soil is well-drained and not compacted. One exception to this rule is the daikon radish with its long, sturdy root, which is often used by gardeners to open up heavy compacted clay soil and help it release its nutrients. For the purposes of most home growers, though, it's best to inspect your soil you'll be growing your root crops in and feel it. Look for a light texture without any big chunks in it such as bark mulch, rocks, or sticks. These will make your roots misshapen. Add some well-aged compost or vermicompost to condition your soil before planting, but avoid manure or other high amounts of nitrogen fertilizer. I learned the hard way with this one, and it took me a while to learn that nitrogen fertilizer tends to encourage the carrots to fork out or send out lots of little sideways roots, or in the case of radishes, loads of leaves with no bolving root at all. We'll get to that later. When I first started planting carrots and radishes in pots simply due to my lack of garden space, I accidentally landed upon a fantastic growing trick that I've never looked back on since. At the time, I simply grabbed a bag of potting mix, dumped it into two large pots, and planted those carrots and radishes with no fussing around with a mixture at all. Most potting mixes already have nutrients added to them. Take, for example, this all-purpose bag of ProMix potting mix. If you look on the information panel on the back of the bag, which is right here, you'll see it lists both the ingredients in the mix as well as the available nutrients. You can see that it is made from a mixture of Canadian sphagnum peat moss, perlite, which helps with the drainage, lime, controlled release fertilizer, and mycorrhizae, which are a fungi that help the plant to absorb nutrients through its roots. You really don't need to add anything else to this. It will be perfectly sufficient to grow both your carrots and your radishes well, especially if you put the pot in full sunlight. The mixture is also easy to keep moist while the seeds are germinating, and for the most part, it will work well throughout the growing season for these crops. Over the years, I've tried out a whole bunch of potting mixes due to whatever was cheapest and available. These are in the blue here are some of the mixes I've tried and liked over the years, with perhaps my favorite being ProMix premium organic vegetable and herb potting mix. You want to look for one that has a fine, light texture with not a lot of chunky bits in it. You'll also want to be sure if you are buying a mix that you choose a potting mix, not something heavier, such as those labeled gardening soil or garden soil. These, along with the soil taken from your garden, will just compact in a pot, not only making the pot super heavy, but will cause poor drainage. Essentially, when purchasing a potting mix, you are getting a growing medium that actually doesn't have any soil in it at all. You might be wondering, how come we can plant root crops in a garden, in garden soil, then if it's not recommended for use in pots? In the ground, you have to remember that soil is naturally aerated by earthworms, roots, and other creatures as they tunnel through it. Soil in a pot is limited to what's contained in that pot, no more. So these soilless potting mixes are made to contain a variety of materials which are designed to drain well, remain aerated, and feed the plants to perform reasonably well without adding nutrition, depending on the crop. The one issue with purchasing a soilless potting mix to grow your carrots and radishes is exactly that, you have to purchase it. And that can get expensive, impractical, and not great for the environment, really. Because the nutrients get depleted in the soil, you can't just plant your crops in your pot year after year without amending it. If you don't want to be purchasing potting mix year after year and wonder what to do with your spent soil in your pots, you have to come up with some creative solutions. For many years, I simply dumped my spent soil into my large compost on top of my kitchen waste, lawn clippings, and leaves, and it was cycled back into my garden beds. This, however, eventually led to a buildup of excess soil in the garden beds, which wasn't good. In the last few years, I've continued to put my spent potting soil through the compost, but now I am experimenting with reusing the composted soil in my pots and purchasing only a little bit of potting mix for the very top portions of the pots. This seems to be working quite well, and it also adds composted nutrition back into the mix. I've also experimented with adding drainage materials such as sand and perlite. The addition of perlite really seems to lighten up the soil and help a lot with drainage issues. One great advantage to using freshly bought potting mix to grow your carrots and radishes in is that it is sterile and will have absolutely no trace of bugs or eggs or diseases in it, hopefully. This means less potential for those trawling creatures to get at your roots. When choosing a pot to grow your crop in, you want one that is deep enough to handle the root depth and wide enough to space your plants out correctly. Most radish varieties need a pot that is at least six inches deep, with, of course, that exception of the daikon, which will need a good two feet, actually. Carrots, on the other hand, will require a container depth of at least 12 inches. I have grown carrots in a shorter pot, the one you can see here on the right, but found that once the roots reach the bottom, they started to curve sideways naturally. The pot you choose might depend on where you are putting it. If it's up on a deck, you'll want to keep it lightweight and easy to move. I've grown in both plastic as well as ceramic pots, and I like both for different reasons. Glazed ceramic pots, like the one you see, the blue one on the left, are much prettier, but they're more expensive than plastic pots and are much harder to move once they're filled. They also don't hold as much moisture and they restrict air exchange. However, they still do the trick. Wooden boxes, like the one on the far, the left bottom corner, are also great, but being a biodegradable material, they rot over time and become great habitats for pill bugs, which enjoy snacking on those tempting emerging seedlings or roots. So my pot of choice when growing both carrots and radishes is around 15 inches tall and 17 inches in diameter at the top, holding roughly 35 liters of soil or a little over 9 gallons. It allows for enough depth for both crops as well as room for spacing. You can, of course, grow them in a pot with a smaller diameter, but you'll have a smaller crop. Spacing for both crops is fairly similar, with the radishes being the pickiest of the two. The thing to take note of is that radishes and carrots, if they're spaced too close together, they will either produce spindly roots with no bulb or they will bolt. Radishes in particular do not like to be crowded. You must space them no closer than one inch apart and hide air towards one and a half inches. Carrots, on the other hand, because of their long cylindrical shape, can be sewn a little more densely at half an inch apart. Sometimes you can sew a little grouping of carrots even closer as long as they have room to grow outwards. However, keep in mind that if you sew your carrots closely together, the roots will probably be smaller, they won't grow to their full mature size, and they may twist together. Planting carrot and radish seeds is really quite simple. Always keep in mind when planting any seed that the rule of thumb is to plant the seed at a depth of no more than two to three times their width. It's better to plant seeds too shallow than too deep. Remember that little seed only has as much food inside it to get the baby plant up and out of the ground so it can begin making its own food through photosynthesis. Radishes are typically planted at a depth of a quarter inch deep and carrots at even a little less being only just buried. You can either make tiny indentations with your finger exactly where you'll be putting each seed in your pot or you can just space them all out correctly and lightly cover them with some more potting mix and pat down. Most seed packages will recommend that you space them closer together to begin with and then thin them out after they've grown. I don't usually do this as I find the germination to be quite good. Sometimes I'll reseed if I have some spaces and sometimes I'll even transplant the tiny seedlings if needed to space them out properly. In general, carrots and radishes don't transplant well, especially if they're anything larger than a tiny seedling. This is because they are root crops and their roots don't like to be disturbed. I have seen both of these crops for sale in garden stores as seedlings for purchase to transplant into the garden but I feel this is a particular waste of time and money as you'll never get as good a crop as you would if you just planted them yourself from seed. It's certainly ridiculous to buy radishes as a seedling in a store because they're such a quick inexpensive crop. If you do transplant, do it quickly when they are teeny tiny seedlings like you can see here on the left with only their first little set of leaves showing. Anything after this and you'll disturb the roots causing them to be deformed. When I do transplant, like radishes, I can get them to grow quite well. Like in this pot actually I watered and you can see that the seeds, unfortunately I moved my seeds when I watered so you have to be careful because those seeds are shallow and then shallowly sown and then your water can flush them out and move them around. And so it ended up with all the seeds here or all the seedlings here so I moved some of them into the middle. Carrots, you can't really do that. They're just too small and then they become deformed so I don't transplant my carrots. Unless I was growing them sorry in a pot as a group and transplanted the whole little chunk that can sometimes work keeping them in the soil. Alright to cover or not to cover? That is the question. Most avid gardeners will recommend that you cover your carrot and radish crops with a floating row cover. This is a lightweight white breathable cloth that lets in both sunshine as well as rain but it helps to keep out the frost, the hail, the snow and most importantly, flying insects that could land on the leaves of your plants and lay eggs which will then hatch into munching pests. The most common pests attracted to radishes and carrots include the carrot rust fly, root maggots, wireworms, flea beetles, cut worms, cabbage looper, aphids, slugs and wood lice. We should definitely include rodents and squirrels in this pest list as well because they love to nibble both the juicy tender root tops as well as the emerging seedlings. One day your newly planted seedlings are there and the next they're gone. If you decide to use a floating row cover to protect your crop, you'll want to apply the fabric at the time you sow the seeds rather than waiting to cover them once the seedlings have emerged. For example, the adult root maggot fly is attracted to newly seeded damp soil. The fly will also lay its eggs on the soil at the base of a stem particularly of those belonging to the cabbage mustard family or the brassicae family of which radishes are a member. These root maggots can also overwinter in the soil so in that case it wouldn't help whether you covered your crop or not. Of course if you've planted your crop in a pot of newly purchased potting soil you won't have this problem. So you can see under this tent this would be in around late March early April probably in or yeah around that time. It was from two years ago but here's a row of radishes right here and here's a row of carrots and then I have a bunch of other things like mizuna and lettuce and even some I think I have some broccoli over here if I can remember I can I don't know. But yeah they grow great under a floating row cover. Probably the biggest pest when it comes to carrots is the dreaded carrot rust fly. It also overwinters as pupa in the soil near the host plant or sometimes as larvae within carrot roots left over winter. The adults emerge towards the end of April and are present in BC until heavy frost. Like the cabbage root maggot fly the carrot rust fly is attracted to the smell of the leaves and will lay its eggs at the base of the carrot and about one week later the larva hatches and begins to tunnel into the root leaving unsightly dark brown trails rendering the carrot inedible. These flies feed on members of the carrot or umbiliferae family which includes other well known plants such as dill, parsley, celery, parsnips and queen ends lace. We could spend an entire lesson learning about the various pests of these two crops but what I will say is that it is incredibly helpful to learn about the life cycles of common pests found in your gardens and to learn their eating habits. What attracts them and what discourages them? Knowledge is power so it's important to arm yourself with information on how to dodge your enemy so to speak. For example the carrot rust flyer is known to be a particularly weak flyer not flying very high no very far. There are also three generations in a growing season so growers can use this information to their advantage when timing their planting, watering, harvesting and crop rotation to minimize the damage caused by this test. A late planting for example after June 1st may avoid the first generation of flies and an early harvest at the beginning of September can minimize third generation damage. Because the carrot rust fly is attracted to the smell of the leaves you can also minimize this by spacing the seeds the proper distance to begin with rather than thinning out the seedlings which releases the scent as you do it. Apparently the carrot rust fly is most actively flying around in the early evening as well between 4-9pm so it is recommended that you don't water your carrots during this time once again releasing that lovely carrot-y fragrance. Here is where growing your carrots and pots can be a great advantage especially if you have the ability to place your pot up on a balcony or a patio and elevate it somehow. Because the carrot rust fly is such a weak flyer I've had tremendous success growing my carrots up on the sunny back deck away from the soil of the gardens. I thought that my elevated garden beds would also be the trick and they were much better than attempting to grow carrots in the ground but they still weren't as good as pots on my deck. I typically don't even cover my pots at all with a floating row cover and I rarely have problems with the carrot rust fly or other root maggots for that matter even if I'm not using freshly bought potting mix. Another way of foiling the bugs is to avoid planting your carrots or radishes and rows and instead plant them between other smelly plants to confuse the bugs such as strong smelling merry golds or members of the Allium family like garlic, chives or onions. Planting your vegetables in monocrop style and by that I mean in rows of the same plant means that pests can quickly and easily move on to attack the next vegetable in your row. If you sow your carrots and radishes in amongst other vegetables in your bed it will once again make them harder to detect and thus help to minimize the damage. Sometimes you can find varieties of vegetables that have been bred to be resistant to certain pests or diseases. The carrot called flyaway is a good example of a variety of carrot that is less susceptible to attacks by the carrot rust fly than other varieties. Bugs such as wood lice commonly known as pill bugs and slugs can simply be picked off by hand and disposed of. Enough to be vigilant though. I've actually watched pill bugs guiltily speeding away from devouring my radish seedlings when I came close to inspect what was happening. Let's talk about rodents. There's nothing more discouraging than being almost ready to harvest your beautiful plump little root crop when you notice bite marks and holes in the tops of all of them rendering them inedible. Mice, rats, and squirrels tend to take a nibble out of one and then move on to the next. But once again growing in pots here can be to your advantage. You just have to be a little creative. I have to stop here to show you a photo of one of my most frustrating years ever with rodent and squirrel damage. I simply could not keep up with them. No sooner had my seedlings emerged than they were nibbled back to the ground. I tried to cover my boxes with floating row cover stapling it to the box and securing every tiny crack which worked for a while. But as the peas grew I had to cover more and more of it until it looked utterly ridiculous and then to my dismay when peeking into the ugly structure. I discovered it was not keeping out the nibblers. I think my husband got so tired of my tossing and turning in bed at night and the constant barrage of daily complaints that he kindly built me a cage to cover both boxes. The frame of the cage was made out of wood and a quarter inch chicken wire was attached to it. Each cage had lids with handles that could be lifted open and shut as needed allowing taller plants to grow later in the season. I have found that the feeding frenzies tend to happen in early spring and again in the fall with less damage happening in the summer months when food is plentiful for them to find. So if you can protect those early spring seedlings and fall harvests somehow you'll be less frustrated. These pots can be easily covered with these chicken wire cages. I've used them now for years at the school that I teach at. The cages not only keep out the rodents but they also deter a little curious hands on the school ground. You do have to be a bit careful when handling them though as the rough edges of chicken wire can be very sharp and can scratch or catch on your clothing. To double protection from bugs you can also then lay a floating row cover over your wire structure or inside it as I've done here in the bottom picture. Another thing to note here with rodents be active in your growing space. Inspect and move around in the space as much as you can during the growing season. Squirrels are out and about during the day so activity in your growing space will deter them somewhat. Again a deck can be advantageous here especially one that is located close to your kitchen. Rats and mice on the other hand are most active at night unfortunately. I'm just going to say do not under any circumstances have bird seed or nuts available for critters to enjoy in your yard and certainly not near your vegetables. I know we like to feed those cute little birds but this will only attract more rodents and squirrels to your yard as they go for the fallen seed. So the trick is to not let the rodents discover your delicious crops in the first place because once they do it can be game over for you. Seeing as we're knee deep into the problem section here let's continue along that vein and look at the misshapen roots. This can easily happen to both crops. I've already mentioned radishes that only grow spindly tap roots and don't bulb up. So to review incorrect spacing insufficient light incorrect planting time and too much nitrogen can be the culprits here. And if you end up with seed planted your radishes and you've got great tops and you start to notice that they're just doing this or they're just doing this. These ones seedlings are quite little but already at this stage I know they're most likely not going to bulb up. Because they're such a quick crop pull them out eat the greens and seed again if you still have enough time. Radishes can also have multiple tap roots. This can happen when the potassium in the soil is out of balance but more likely again it's once again due to overcrowding. Carrots similarly can become misshapen or hairy when there is too much nitrogen in the soil or if the soil is waterlogged and not draining properly. Both radishes and carrots can also split or pop open leaving an unsightly inedible root that is much more prone to rotting when left in the soil. Cracked or split roots are most often a problem caused by inconsistent watering particularly a sudden drenching after a prolonged dry period. Keeping the watering as even as possible will help avoid this problem. Forked or deformed roots can often be an issue particularly with carrots. It's sometimes comical what twisted formations you end up pulling out of the soil. Hard materials in the soil such as rocks pebbles or bits of unrotted organic material like wood chips are usually to blame for this as the carrot simply tries to grow around the immovable obstacle. So using a finer growing medium will help or sieving the soil before planting. If you wind up with a carrot or radish set as a woody texture it can mean a couple of things. One that the root has grown beyond its ideal harvest time and two that the plant has bolted and is starting to put its energy toward making flowers and seeds. You'll be able to tell if it is bolting because a stronger main stem comes up out of the root and looks quite different from the typical leaves. If you'll remember radishes are meant to be a quick crop. If they take overly long to grow due to less than ideal growing conditions like low light, too cold or hot temperatures, overcrowding or even scorching sunlight with periods of intense heat and drought, they can quickly bolt and become woody. Carrots will do the same thing but are a little less susceptible. I have found with both crops that certain varieties are more prone to bolting than others. One thing I'll say in favor of bolting is that because carrots are from the umbiliferae family their flowers are extremely attractive to beneficial insects which hunt unwanted pests in our garden. So sometimes if I have a few carrots that bolt I just let them be and welcome in my helpful bug warriors. A harsh or unpleasantly hot flavoring radishes usually simply means it's been in the earth for too long. This is especially true if it's had to take longer to mature than normal and especially so as it heads into the summer heat. If you have trouble with this issue try choosing the smallest globe varieties you can find and work on getting them to bulb up as quickly as you can such as Cherry Bell is a good one or Easter Egg Radish. Now onto the fun stuff. I always feel like a kid in a candy shop when I get to go into the garden store and drool over all the colorful radish and carrot packages. I always try to grow a new variety of both every growing season. I'm sure every avid gardener has their favorite and each seed company will have at least a couple of recommendations. There are four main categories of carrots. Imperator which is most common in the grocery store so they're long, they taper to a pointed tip, they can be difficult to grow in chunky or compacted soil. Shantane which are stouter, they're short and wide, they have broad shoulders with a blunt tip and they can power through clay and rocky soil. Danvers which are conical in shape, round shoulders, they grow to about 6 to 7 inches long, they taper to a point and they're perfect for home growers. And Nantes which are cylindrical with a rounded point, bred for sweetness and they're top for home growers. Some of my favorite varieties of carrots to grow include Fly Away, the one I mentioned that tends to avoid the carrot rust fly. Little Fingers for their tender sweet little roots that are so yummy as baby carrots. They're also perfect for growing in containers. Scarlet Nantes is a beautiful classic heirloom carrot. Rainbow Blend Carrots I think seen here on the right and they come in a variety of up to five different colors. They're always a favorite with my grade fours. Annopoly which is an extra early hybrid which not only matures in 55 days, it's also one of the best tasting carrots especially after a fall frost. So these are some of the ones I mentioned here. And sometimes you can find different brands carrying those rainbow carrots or sometimes you'll have one that's similar like this Harlequin mix. But you can see all these three have a variety of carrots which are really fun to grow. I'd really recommend them. They're super fun. I'm going to talk about this white wine yet. Next. I've also tried white satin carrots and neutral red carrots from West Coast Seeds. I've had mixed results with both of these two but I've really enjoyed the juicy white satin ones when they didn't bolt. I did find that both these varieties were a little more prone to bolting for some reason than my other favorites. Many years ago I also grew Harris Market Carrots that you'll see here on the left. These are known for their stumpy little shape. They're good though for growing clay soils and also in containers both due to the lack of a long root. All right, a question for you all. I'm wondering what other favorite carrot varieties we have out there because there's so many and I've only mentioned a few. So if you have one I haven't mentioned, please share it with us in the chat and we'll list out a few of them. It looks like maybe no one knows any other varieties than what you've mentioned. I certainly don't know any others than the ones you've mentioned. I don't think of any, hey? Let me take a minute for people to remember. Oftentimes I'll just, I don't know, I just look at the picture and go, oh that looks good, I'll plant that. I'm starting to take better notes now of course that I'm doing more teaching than just doing it for myself. And then I notice with the kids too, I like I really want ones that are going to work well for the kids at school and be really consistent. Anything coming yet? Yeah, someone likes purple because they're so remarkable. They're really cool. Someone else, I don't remember what they're called but they're big big fat ones that they think are a Persian carrot or an Asian carrot. Cool. Yeah. I do like the ones that are really, really dark purple almost like an indigo and they're orange in the center. Yes. Very pretty when you cut them open. I think that's this one, the one in the photo up at the top. Yeah. Right. All right. My talk to radish varieties to grow have remained hands down French breakfast, which is a classic heirloom from the 1880s known for its beautiful red and white appearance, and Easter egg radishes, which are a blend of six different colored white fleshed radishes that grow consistently at uniform rates and look like colorful little Easter eggs. Like the Easter egg blend from West Coast Seeds, you can get one called Five Color Radish Mix Garden Party from Renee's Seeds. This one has similar colors but also has a yellow colored radish in the mix, which I think is in the picture there. That picture is not that mix. It's a bunch of different ones but the yellow one is in there. This mix seems to perform equally well to the Easter egg blend. Sparkler White Tip Radish from Pacific Northwest Seeds is also lovely and performs well as does Pink Punch from Renee's Seeds. So these are some of the ones I've grown and mentioned. So those are those two Easter egg and the Garden Party ones I mentioned and Sparkler White Tip, Pink Punch and French Breakfast. This was a French breakfast that also had like a little round one with it, which was interesting. These rivally ones, I grew one year with Garden Buddies and every single one grew only leaves, whereas all the other radishes were great, like French breakfast and the Easter egg. But these ones only leaves. I don't know. It was so weird. Let's talk about this white icicle one because this one's really neat. Long white icicle is a beautiful white radish that is differently shaped than all the others in that it grows up to six inches long and is pointed at the ends. I picked up also those golden Helios radishes on the left there, which in the package were really an egg yellow, but in reality they were more like a parsnip mustard yellow. This is the real radish. Here's the picture. They don't look quite great. And there are also some varieties of radish that are grown mostly in the fall months, known as winter radishes. They're usually larger than spring radishes and take longer to grow. While spring radishes tend to mostly come in red, white, pink and purple colors, winter radishes are typically white or white and green, cream or black in color, like the one you see here in this photo right there. One of the most beautiful and stunningly colorful root crops of all time has got to be the watermelon radish. You would never know from its pale green and white outside the vibrant color that was hiding inside, like a geode or something. It's simply thrilling to cut open one of these beauties. Other popular varieties of winter radishes include that daikon radish. Well, there's different varieties of them and black Spanish radishes. Personally, I have not had tremendous success growing winter radishes. I tend to successfully grow abundant leaves with no balbing root. So clearly I have some learning to do here, but it could also be the limited sunlight on my property or simply my timing. For the beginner radish grower or someone who wants insured success, stick to the spring varieties I already mentioned. These varieties can be grown well in both spring and fall, though they perform the best in my opinion in the spring. All right, let's do radishes. Are there any other radish varieties you gardeners would recommend for our group? Please type them into the chat and let's hear what they are. I love the watermelon radish that you already mentioned. There's also a gray radish that I really like and they probably have a more formal name than gray radish. And is it like a winter radish as well? I'm not sure. I'll have to do some research, but they tend to come up early spring. Okay, yep. And they're short and round and delicious. They're a little bit sweeter. And gray in color, you're saying? Yeah, really light gray, so almost white, but they're a little bit gray. Oh, neat. We've got a spice radish. Probably a lot of the ones I've already mentioned are favorites of other people too. Yeah, I like daikon radish too, for sure. And you've grown that. Good for you. Those ones can grow very long. Yeah, they're really hard. I've not had a lot of success, but occasionally I'll get one or two. Great. Good job. Both carrots and radishes are on the top of my list for must grow veggies for the home gardener of all ages. They are simply a delight to watch growing and even more exciting to harvest. My three children have participated in growing these two crops for every year they've been able to and they'd be tremendously disappointed if I didn't grow them one year. There's something super special about grabbing the stems and pulling out a colorful little root perfect for snacking on. This is yet another advantage for growing these crops in a pot, hopefully near to your kitchen where you can frequently observe its growth. Children in particular enjoy having a pot to plant and grow their own little crop in. It also means that you can move the pot to receive more sunshine if you need to. When my children were quite young, I discovered the concept of bread and butter radishes. This simply means that radishes are divine when served on some sort of toast or cracker spread with butter with a small sprinkling of salt. I suppose it's because the butter helps to tame any possible heat coming from the radish and the salt enhances the flavor. My students and her family also simply enjoy dipping the freshly picked radishes and salt for this reason. Some people even dip the radishes and butter before enjoying them. To celebrate a radish harvest at the school where I teach, I host what is what I call my radish birthday party. It's a bit of a pun because it actually usually falls on or around my birthday. But I tell the students that it's really the radishes birthday that we're celebrating. They each get to pick a radish or two and then we have a butter making competition where teams are given 500 milliliters of plain whipped cream in a one liter jar. And they have to take turns shaking it until it turns into butter. It's probably the noisiest day in the entire school year and it takes a good 20 to 30 minutes of vigorous shaking enough to work out any nine year old wiggly energy. They then get to try the delicious buttermilk that is separated from the butter and enjoy spreading the soft creamy butter onto crackers and bread and top it with their sliced radishes and a little salt. My husband and I went to a fancy Italian restaurant a few years ago where they served pan seared spring radishes fried with a little butter, garlic, mint, salt and pepper. So simple but so tasty. They also included a few of the stems in the dish. Radish leaves are a little bit prickly so the best way to enjoy them is to cook them as you would spinach such as lightly sauteed and garlic, a little olive oil or butter. You can also toss them into soups or substitute them for parsley or basil in your favorite pesto recipe. They're great addition to any pasta dish and they pair well with Parmesan cheese. They'll also work in egg dishes as a substitute for spinach. If your radish happens to bolt the flowers are pretty and can be tossed on tops of salads for a pretty pop of color. The pods are they're also edible and can be stir fried or pickled. Possibly the best way to use carrot tops would be to make them into pesto. Because they taste like a mix between parsley which is their relative and carrots, they can be used as a substitute for any dish requiring parsley. They also make a good alternative to cilantro for the same reason. Carrot tops are simply delicious in tabula or quinoa dishes. Obviously there are millions of ways to enjoy the carrot roots but our favorite is simply to pick one out of the garden, wash it and eat it right then and there. We also enjoy dipping these tender babies into hummus. Lastly if you're a person that enjoys colorful photographic garden produce then carrots and radishes will provide you with ample material for years to come. I hope I've managed to not only quell your carrot and radish growing fears and frustrations but also maybe to inspire you to try your hand at growing them in pods. Here's a list of some helpful radish and carrot growing resources along with the link to register for my online gardening classes with the BC Brain Wellness Program. So I'd encourage you to check that out. So thanks so much and I'm going to stop here now and maybe we'll have a few questions. Alright, thank you so much for that. So folks you can put your questions into the chat I'm orange the Q&A I will look at them in both places. We do have some questions that have come in already so in terms of pests how do you manage raccoons. Oh gosh I've done that one but honestly those cages if you're if you're able to have a cage of some sort, it works really well. Like those wooden cages that my husband built would definitely they would keep out pretty much anything because they're you know they have a wooden structure but even the the metal ones just did that you saw with the cages over top of the pods would do it. And the way like we've done it a few different ways so at the school we built kind of a box type structure and then we clip it on. So like with bulldog clips you know the black bulldog clips it seems to work really well like you saw the carrots they were actually we plant them in those boxes you can get from Home Depot they're big black plastic boxes and we just drill some holes in the bottom and you can plant some nice little rows in that. And then we put that cage over top and that would work. If you're planting it in a round one you can build one that has like around, you know you go like this and then we tied it like we sort of twist tied it with some wire. And then we had a piece on top that we again twist tied with wire and that could be opened and closed you have to watch out when you put your arm in. And I think we ended up like kind of bolting it to the side of the pot so that's yeah it's going to be your best way to keep those raccoons out for sure. Okay. So what about drainage when you're growing in pots do you recommend styrofoam rock smash or some other form. Yeah, I've tried drainage and pots I've tried lots of different things at first when we were doing pot gardening, we got like big chunks of styrofoam and then I started thinking what's in the styrofoam I don't know if I want it like leaching into my vegetables. And so I got rid of it, like if I were just growing flowers, fine, but if I'm growing something edible and especially a root crop that's going down into the soil I just didn't want to fool around with that. And for a while yeah I was doing rocks. And then I just stopped. I just, I just, I think I ended up putting like just a few like just the bare minimum of rocks just near where the holes were. And then the mixed like they honestly they have the pearl light in them so it helps for pretty like pretty well you got to watch out that the rocks don't block the drain holes, because I've had that happen before I did have it happen once with carrots and like those ones I showed you that were like Harry, and it didn't drain well. And that wasn't good so yet you got to watch the drainage but if you can figure it away because yeah I'm a deck you can't really have a lot of heavy materials. You can't have people crushing up like broken plastic pots and using that in the bottom. Trying to think of any other things that you could use this drainage. You know, I mean, Styrofoam is nice because it's so lightweight but yeah and then one year I tried putting leaves that this was an interesting experiment I tried. I had some like crushed up leaves and stuff in the bottom, but what happened was they robbed the nitrogen actually out of the soil as they were trying to decompose. And so carrots were really small and I got like spindly leaves it was really interesting to see the difference. So, I didn't work. Okay, what about grow bags. Grow bags. Yeah grow bags are great. They're just yeah same thing is growing in like a pot they're pretty much well depending on the grow big size I have some massive ones as well but the usual grow big size would be kind of like those pots I mentioned that grow bags are quite deep but you can in the middle they're really too deep, but you can roll down the top, you know so it's not quite so deep, and the beauty of growth bags is that you can move it where you need to so you want to really watch your son and of course the sun is changing drastically right now like my front garden where my front garden beds are is starting to only now be in sun, whereas all winter long it's in the shade. So it's amazing how much the sun moves. So you've got to really watch that and that's the one of the beauties of grow bags is that you can quite easily move them where you need to. Yeah, that makes sense. Yep. Okay, do you have an opinion on sea soil. Yes, I love sea soil. I love it. Okay, I've had lots of different experiences with it for the yeah for the most part it's a great product, especially for things that really enjoy that, you know, real boost of nutrients so like your tomatoes are going to love it, you know, but with carrots and radishes, it's not good. So it's just too chunky it's got like big bits and big like lots of like woody bits, and it's also very high in in nutrition and nutrients and stuff it's too high to feed carrots and radishes you could put out kind of way down but you know if you get those roots hitting those pieces you're going to get weird, you know, be formations in them and twisting and all sorts of stuff so yeah I would just tend to stick with tomatoes or something like that. You could top dress a little bit but honestly carrots and radishes don't need a lot, especially if you're using the potting mixes they're going to have kind of just the right amount of fertilizer in them for what you need to grow for carrots and radishes. Okay. Have you heard of the rat tail radish person purchase some flowers from a farmer's market and the flowers were supposedly from the rat tail radish. I don't know that one. And I don't know what it looks like the interesting to look up but what an interesting name. Yeah. It must just be really long and thin I guess. Maybe I don't know. Okay what about planting in a small garbage can and potentially putting the lid on it to keep out pests. Okay that's an interesting idea. The thing about a garbage can it could work but you need to have light so I mean unless it were like really see through and even then, you know they need light and they need ventilation to right so you know like I think my example of the black plastic tubs is a good example of kind of reusing one of those sorts of boxes or containers and drilling holes in the bottom. But like I said if you want to avoid critters and things getting at it you've got to have some sort of coverage. Unless you're you know you can you can go for it and see what happens like if you're planting them on a deck for example. And you don't seem to have a lot of rodent problems or squirrels you might be just fine. Like out in the yard these days there are so many like rodents and squirrels about that they're just probably most of us have experienced quite a bit of rodent damage actually in our vegetable gardens and honestly once they find them that's when the problem is you know it just takes that first finding and then they know where the goods are. And they tell all their friends. They do absolutely. Or me to battle them off I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, do you have any success growing carrots and radishes in pots indoors. I have not attempted that. I think that would be really hard like I do microgreens and sprouts and all of my seeding I seed a good majority of my flowers and vegetables indoors, just because I can get a jumpstart on all of them. But carrots and radishes are cops that I don't they just they need that really bright sunlight and no amount of grow lights no specialty grow lights that you're ever going to get or they're never going to be equal to the sun what the sun can naturally produce. Unfortunately, and you might you know you might be able to grow like tops but I just don't know that you'll get a great root out of them. Yeah. Alright folks if there's any more questions you can get those in. Okay, I've heard of rats having boundary disputes around the garden when I'm watering. Yeah. And I think I actually think the same is maybe true for squirrels I'm not sure I mean sometimes I'll see several different colored ones in our area but I wonder, I don't know much about squirrel squirrels and their territory, but I wonder if they kind of have a territory and they're like this garden bed's mine. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. If I were an animal and I were snacking on organic produce, I'd be like, yes, stay away buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so are growing radishes and carrots and pots your preferred method for growing radishes and carrots. Absolutely. Yes. Really. When I first started growing, I had two little, we actually dug up our lawn in the front yard, which was really weird and it's north facing and people thought we were nuts. That was my birthday present. It's been dug up to kind of oval plots and I had such a great time, but I tried carrots and radishes the first year and bugs central like just bugs all the way through them, which was really disappointing and then like I said I just literally got some pots dumps and potting soil into it, sterile potting soil and tried and I was like, oh my gosh, like the result was like night and day difference. They were beautiful as you could see from all the photos, right? Yeah. Untouched by bugs of any kind. I did not cover them with a floating row cover. Yeah. It was amazing. And then some years if the rodents discovered them, then I would, you know, I got the radishes or carrots nibbled. Like I said, pill bugs can be a problem. You know, so I have had to, you know, work on that. But in terms of, yeah, like carrot rust fly, you know, the typical like root crawlers and wire worms and things like that. Wow, it made a difference growing on my sunny deck in a pot. I would never go back. Joanna, thank you so much. Have a great evening everyone. Welcome. Thank you, Kendra. Night. Good night.