Radish Pods - Who Knew?

Every year, I plant radishes in our garden. I'm not quite sure why, since I'm really not a radish person and no one else in the house actually likes radishes. But they're easy to grow and they come up fast and they make lots of pretty leaves early in the summer when nothing else is growing yet, which makes them gratifying. So, I dutifully plant radishes every year, and my family dutifully picks them out of their salads and leaves them on the side of the plate.



This year, what with one thing and another, I never got around to harvesting the radishes. A couple of weeks after I should have pulled them up and planted something else in their place, they burst into stalks of delicate fairy-white and pale purple flowers, followed by... bean? Peas? I walked out onto the porch one morning and just stared. Okay, I thought to myself. I thought I planted radishes there. What the heck?

The heck is ... radish pods! Who knew? I'd feel a whole lot dumber about this, except one of the first suggestions when you type 'radish pods' into Google is 'radish pods edible?' So, apparently, I'm not the only one who didn't know that if you let your radishes bolt, you end up with this lovely vegetable that tastes like a cross between chilies and peas. Can't wait to try them in recipes like this one: Sweet Corn and Mogri Salad. It looks like I'm growing everything I need for it right on the front porch.

Not only are they delicious - sooo much better than radishes, yo! -- they are prolific AND nutritious.