Black Amethyst Winter Radish

Big round black skinned radish with a sweet purple amethyst interior.  Only plant after mid-July.

This is a variety developed by Tourne-Sol. It is an evolving plant population with a lot of genetic diversity. That means the plants are not uniform and they don’t all look the same.  They are all edible, beautiful and delicious.

Crop Species: Raphanus sativus

Crop Family:  Brassicaceae

Seed Story

Imagine cutting into a Black Radish and revealing a deep red inside.

This was the vision that led my first winter Radish breeding project.

I planted some Black Radish (black outside and white inside) besides some Watermelon Radish (white/green outside and red inside) with the intention of crossing them up. 

The radishes went to flower. 

And the bees and the flies and all the pollinators did their thing carrying pollen amongst the flowers, not caring what variety was what,

In the first generation after the cross, most of the Black Radish seed produced Black Radishes. And most Watermelon Radish seed produced Watermelon Radishes. These seeds had not crossed up - they’d been pollinated by their own pollen.

But there were also some purple radishes growing in the rows. Purple with black blotches on the outside and the insides were like Amethyst.

These had definitely crossed up and they had produced something totally unexpected.Where had that purple come from? This was the F1 generation.

I kept the seeds from the purple radishes and grew them out.

In the F2 generation, many of the characteristics we’d started out with showed up again but they were all mixed up. There were radishes with

• White outside and white inside (i did not like these at all)
• White outside with red or purple inside (again this purple!)
• Red outside with red inside
• Purple outside with purple inside
• Black outside with white inside
• And … black outside with red or purple inside (YES!!!!)

I isolated the last group from the rest and kept their seed.

We’ve been selecting these radishes for over 10 years and we have two lines: Black Crimson Radish with red flesh and Black Amethyst Radish with purple flesh.

Please note that these radishes are still not fully stable, you will find a diversity of colours in this population. But they are still pretty exciting!

HOW TO HARVEST

Pull a couple of radishes to see if they have sized up. If they haven’t yet sized up, wait a couple more days. Radishes can easily be pulled by hand. Rub or rinse off the dirt.

HOW TO GROW

Planting Information

• Luminosity: Full Sun
• Seed Depth: 1cm (1/2")
• Germination Temperature: 20C (68F)
• Days to Germination: 3-4 days
• Earliest Planting Date: Mid July 
• Latest Planting Date: Mid August
• Days to maturity: 56  days
• Harvest period: late September - early November

Directions for Direct Seeding:

HOW TO KEEP SEEDS

• Harvest radishes in the fall and store through the winter
• Harvest and select your best radishes. Remove some of the outer leaves but leave some small leaves.
• Replant in your garden in 2 rows spaced 60cm (24”) apart. Plant radishes 15cm to 30cm apart in the row.
• Trellis radishes to support them.
• Radish seed pods will be ready in mid August.
• Harvest mature seed pods and put in a protected area for the pods to keep drying
• Crush the pods when they are dry.
• Screen to separate chaff
• Winnow out chaff with a fan.
• Store seeds in a dry area