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I’m not generally prone to fear, but two pages into Maryn McKenna’s Suberbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA, a chill ran down my spine. McKenna opens her book with a story about a teenager named Tony who scraped his elbow after taking a tumble in the school gym. His elbow healed, but days later his left knee began to swell and throb. He developed a fever and body aches. Bay the time he was taken to a hospital, Tony was in septic shock. The ICU staff pumped him full of drugs and surgeons sliced through his body, draining infection from his hand, knee and thigh that reached all the way to the bone. “They told me he was the sickest child on that ICU,” his mother recalled. “They didn’t expect him to live.”

Cherry Belle, French Breakfast, White Icicle, Plum Purple – these are just a few varieties of summer radishes that are garnering attention in the produce aisle and at farmers’ markets and gracing CSA (community supported agriculture) boxes. The jewel-toned beauties we’ve been receiving from our CSA are fat and gorgeous, almost too pretty to eat. We ogle, then quickly get them into a salad, or slice for a quick and cooling snack as these sweet and spicy nuggets keep in the refrigerator only for a short time.

This root crop can mature in as little as three weeks, which, for those with gardens, is about as close to instant gratification as growing your own vegetables can get. If left in the ground too long, they can get woody, pithy and mighty spicy, so it’s okay to get greedy with your radish reaping.