Cherry Belle Radishes with Sweet Mocha, Banana, Ancho, and Poblano Peppers

Day 112 (6/7/22) for the Ancho Grande and Mocha Swirl peppers.

Day 19. The radishes portion of this project is ended today (3/6/22). You definitely can grow radishes alongside slower-growing plants like peppers, but the radish foliage begins to block the light to the smaller plants after about 2 weeks.A couple of days ago the radishes were relocated to another Bounty Elite--all the radishes but the one that grew fastest, which I ate. Radishes today. I struggled to keep the bulbs lifted above the sponge. The radishes seem to grow best when the enlarging stem is exposed to the light.Illustration of why you need to lift the red radish stem to the top of the pod and sponge:Today's harvest. The radishes taste great despite their irregular shapes. They are solid (not watery in texture) and fairly hot. I planted a new garden with these Burpee Cherry Belle radishes today, to see whether I can get better shapes.This is what the Burpee Cherry Belle is supposed to look like.

It always amazes me, the amount of abuse that hydroponically-grown seedlings and transplants can take. Yesterday (Friday) I separated the pepper seedlings that were sharing their Bounty temporarily with radishes into pods with one seedling each. I feared that I'd killed them all--you can see they were nearly prostrate when I was finished (top photo). But today they are standing up, except for the one at the far right that is at least holding its leaves up (bottom photo). (I added a little trellis later to help that one regrow its roots.)The pepper seedlings were unusually hard to separate because the roots were mostly growing sideways through the sponges. I ended up having to cut some of the sponges in half vertically to get two plants that both had some roots.I'm hoping that the seedlings from my saved banana pepper seeds do okay. I'd really like to know whether the mother plant is an heirloom or a hybrid. These are the four pods in the center.Back row: Burpee Mocha Swirl; Banana; Banana; Organic Ancho Grande; Burpee Poblano.Front row: Burpee Mocha Swirl; Banana; Banana; Burpee Poblano.

Day 16. The radishes were kind of blocking the light to the peppers, so I moved them to another Bounty that has the extra germinated radishes from the same batch.In order to develop properly, radishes do seem to need to be lifted to the level where the roots start into the sponge. So far I haven't been able to do this very effectively with foil. I need to find something to place at the bottom of the pod that will hold the sponge up.Once the red stems were lifted to get some light, the radishes started to fill out. The hourglass-shaped radish on the left shows what happens when half the red stem is below the pod cover for several days.

It's Day 14, and the radish that's farthest along is really looking like a respectable radish.The other radishes are turning out more long and thin--I've got to hurry up and lift all of them, per ERR0R1755 's helpful Instructions. The peppers planted alongside are coming along as expected, almost ready to thin, so I want to remove the radishes asap.

Day 10. The peppers have germinated. The banana pepper from my saved seeds is in the center in front of the post; the Burpee Mocha Swirl pepper is at the far left. The radishes are doing well, and one of them is beginning to look like a radish!

The radishes (no domes) are UP! I also added an Organic Ancho Grande pod to the garden. I always tend to crowd my AGs, but I'm only going to keep two or at the most three peppers in this garden. If all of the pods sprout healthy plants, I'll relocate some elsewhere.

The Burpee catalog had an irresistible photo of the Sweet Mocha Swirl pepper, so I started one in a Bounty Elite on 2/15/22.I'm also dying to grow radishes, thanks to you folks, so I took a suggestion from a YouTube video, and added radishes that hopefully will mature before the peppers even become seedlings. I planted a few of my saved AG banana pepper seeds, just to find out whether they will germinate. I also planted a few Poblano seeds, because I'm determined to grow happy Poblanos!Fun to come!