Raphanus sativus Seeds | Sparkler Radish
LATIN NAME: Raphanus sativus
COMMON NAME: Sparkler Radish
Plant Profile
Sparkler is a round radish, cherry-red with a white tip and a white interior, maturing in 25-30 days. The roots are uniform and globe-shaped, 3-4 cm across, and the variety is valued for holding its condition a few days longer than the long types.
The plant is small, with a rosette of lobed leaves and a short taproot that swells into the root. It suits containers, window boxes and the front of a bed, and it is one of the few vegetables that can be grown in a seed tray deep enough to fill a sandwich.
Radish of this type was bred in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century as a market garden crop, and Sparkler has been in catalogues since the 1950s. It is a straightforward open-pollinated variety rather than a hybrid, which means seed can be saved.
Science & Biotechnology
The red skin is anthocyanin, concentrated in a few cell layers at the surface, and it leaches into cooking water or pickle brine. That is why pickled radish turns the liquid pink and the root pale within a day.
As with all radishes, pungency comes from glucosinolates and is highest in roots that grew slowly or in heat. Sparkler is mildly hot by nature, and the white tip is not a sign of immaturity but a genetic pattern in pigment distribution.
The crop is also a useful indicator plant. Radish seed germinates fast and is sensitive to soil compaction and to residual herbicides, so a row of radish is a cheap way to test whether a new bed is fit for carrots and parsnips.
Uses & Benefits
Round radishes are the salad radish: sliced thin, salted, dressed with oil and lemon, or left whole in a bowl of iced water for a crudité plate. They also pickle beautifully with vinegar, sugar and a little chilli, and they roast well, which surprises people who only eat them raw.
In the garden Sparkler is a catch crop and a row marker, and it is the radish to grow with children because the result is visible within a month. The leaves can be cooked like spinach when young. Commercially it is a standard bunching and pre-pack variety, and its keeping quality makes it the one most often sold trimmed in plastic.
Growing from Seed
Sow direct at 1 cm deep from March to August, in rows 15 cm apart, and thin to 4 cm. Germination in four to seven days. Do not sow in the heat of midsummer without shade, since the plants bolt and the roots turn woody.
Keep the row moist but not wet, and weed early: radish seedlings are small and easily swamped. Harvest at 3 cm; a Sparkler left to 5 cm turns pithy in the middle. For a winter supply, sow in September under cover, where the roots will hold in the ground until Christmas. Save seed only from plants that are isolated from other radishes in flower, since they cross freely.
Our Take
A reliable, quick, unfussy radish that gives a crop in the gap between two slower ones and asks nothing in return.
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