3 Root Vegetables You Should Plant Today!

Whether you are a seasoned gardener, or this is your first time planting a back yard garden, trust me when I tell you that you want to be growing root vegetables!  And if you are gardening like I am in zone 9, this is the perfect season to give root veggies a try.  These guys often get a bad reputation for being difficult to grow, but the truth is... with a little bit of preparation and a tiny perspective shift, you can be growing delicious root vegetables right in your own back yard! 

First things first, root vegetables are the veggies that are grown for their roots.  Vegetables like radishes, beets, and carrots, are all grown for their roots, and we are going to focus on these three today because you can  grab a pack of seeds and plant these guys TODAY!   They are also my favorite roots to grow.  

In the Wild Child Garden Club, we love growing root vegetables because they are one of the few things that we can keep planting over and over again throughout the cool season.  We plant roots in succession, all season long, every time the moon is waning.  If planting with the moon is new to you, be sure to check out the blog post I wrote about it here.  But moon phase gardening is as old as time and a very powerful way to get better germination and more harvests.  You definitely want to pay attention to the moon when you are planting your roots.  They need the extra gravitational pull to, sort of, straight them up underground, and the water is deeper during the waning phase, so that does the trick.  Most importantly though, the moonlight is dimmer during the waning phase, so there is more growth below ground than above, and that is exactly what we are looking for.

Root vegetables  are nutritional power houses too; they are full of so many vitamins and nutrients in both the root and in the greens.  You want these on your table for you and your family to enjoy all winter.  They are also easy to store.  You don't need any fancy equipment to store these vegetables.  As a matter of fact, you can pickle radishes in your kitchen in less than 10 minutes!   My new class Digging Deep with Roots even includes a Garden to Table with Root Vegetable Recipe download!  Lastly but equally as important in a Wild Child Garden is how beautiful the greens are! Carrot greens add a delicate almost lace-like look to your beds and are truly beautiful tucked between some of the big bully brassicas and their huge leaves.  One of our Garden Club members even leaves some carrots in the corner of her beds each season and lets them flower.  Holy cow they are stunning each season!  This picture below was taken just today from our Community Manager's Garden, look at those pretty carrot greens! 

 Now back to those 3 root vegetables you can plant today!  The easiest of the three is definitely the radish.  Simply direct sow the seeds right into your soils about 2 inches apart from today through the end of the cool season.  They are a quick win every time!  If you don't plant any other root vegetables this season, go to your local feed store today and grab a pack of French breakfast radishes and you will be harvesting radishes in 20 days!  It doesn't get any faster than that!

Pro Tip: harvest radishes when they start popping up out of the soil for best taste!

The second must grow root vegetable for us is the beet.    Beets can also be direct sown right into your garden 3-4 inches apart.  Beets prefer a mild temperature, so this is the perfect time for us here in zone 9 to get those seeds in the ground.   Keep an eye on those beets and harvest when they begin to pop out of the soil just like the radishes.   

Pro Tip: Both the beet and the greens are edible!  So, get creative in the kitchen with these beets! 

  Carrots tend to be the problem child of the root vegetables, but even then, they are really not that difficult.  They are more susceptible to disease since they stay in the ground longer.  First those carrot seeds are TINY, so we will plant them shallower than the radish and beet seeds.  Ignore the dates on the seed packets and use that garden gut that you have been working so hard to develop to make a decision on when they are actually ready to harvest. 

Pro Tip: Loosen the soil around the carrot before you pull them up to avoid breaking. 

 Now that we have talked about the 3 root vegetables you should plant right now, I wanted to share with you a few varieties that I always recommend.  These varieties are tried and true and being grown in the gardens of the over 200 gardeners I coach every day inside of the Wild Child Garden Club!  So, when I recommend these varieties, I want you to know that we are actually growing these same varieties!  

Radishes: Truly any and every variety of radishes will do amazing in your zone 9 cool season garden, but I always plant French Breakfast and Watermelon varieties. 

Beets: Detroit Red and Ruby Queen are my two go two varieties, but this year I added Badger Flame Seeds from Row Seven Seeds!

Carrots: There are so many fun varieties of carrots!  Start with a tried-and-true variety like Purple Haze, Kaleidoscope, and Danvers.  

If I was visiting, you in your garden and you asked me. "Kellye what is the one piece of advice you would give someone who wants to grow root vegetables?" I would tell you to have a plan, and to have realistic expectations! I remind all of the gardeners I coach every day how important it is to have a plan! And because you can succession plant root vegetables all season a plan is even more important! 

So once you have that plan in place, and you know where your root veggies will go, we need to talk about having realistic expectations.  On Episode 65 of my podcast called Digging Into Roots, I talk about my expectations when growing root vegetables.  The most important thing you need to know about root vegetables is that they have a germination rate of around 50%.  What that means is even if you have the perfect soil, water your seeds regularly, and the weather is perfect.  You still are not going to have every seed that you plant germinate!  In the Wild Child Garden Club we would say, #thatsgardening!  But, if you follow your plan and continue to plant seeds when the moon is right you WILL be harvesting root vegetables!