Root vegetables
Mooli radish
Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus
Timings for your region
Suggested: Moderate · Explained in the glossary
Sow outdoorsearly April – mid August
Harvestearly June – early November
Practical tip
Water evenly — alternating dry and wet splits the root and makes it woolly.
Origin & history
Mooli is among the oldest vegetables of all and is documented from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome; no clear wild form is known, and its closest relative is the wild radish that is a common arable weed here. The long white forms — daikon — were bred in East Asia, the round black winter types in Europe. In Bavaria the spiral-cut, salted “Radi” has been part of beer-garden culture since the 19th century; as oil radish the same species is now grown on a field scale as green manure.
Varieties
Summer mooli are white, long or oval, ready in eight to ten weeks and will not store — “Münchner Bier” or the pink “Ostergruß”, for example. Winter types like “Runder Schwarzer Winter” are sown only from July onwards and keep in the cellar into spring. Daikon types grow very long and mild and need correspondingly deep, loosened, stone-free soil. The sowing period on the packet is not a suggestion but a condition: the same variety bolts if it is sown at the wrong time.
Care
Thin early, at the first true leaf at the latest, to 15 cm — plants standing too close make nothing but leaf and a thin stump. The soil should be deeply loosened and free of fresh manure or coarse lumps of compost, or the root forks. A thin mulch is the simplest way to keep moisture even and saves watering trips. Hoe only at the surface; a root sitting half out of the ground is normal and no reason to earth it up.
What can go wrong
Like all brassicas, mooli belongs in the cabbage rotation: grown after cabbage, radish or a mustard green manure it encourages clubroot — keep a four-year gap. Flea beetles on the seedlings and cabbage root fly maggots in the root are kept off by fine-mesh insect netting laid tight from the day of sowing. Bolting plants are almost always a matter of timing: winter mooli sown before July flowers instead of forming a root. Hollow, woolly roots simply mean it was harvested too late.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
Harvest summer mooli young — at 5–6 cm across the root feels heavy and firm; wait for size and you get cotton wool. Winter mooli is lifted before the first harder frost and, packed in damp sand, keeps in a cool cellar until March. The heat only develops when it is cut or grated; sliced and salted, mooli draws water and tastes milder. Young leaves are edible but quickly turn rough and bristly.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.