Lessons Learned: Turnips

By Nicole Reisinger

One of the required projects for interns at Washington Gardener Magazine was to choose our own vegetables to grow throughout the fall semester. During our meetings each week, we would stroll over to the Fenton Community Garden and check on the progress of our plants. This season, I chose to grow ‘Seven Top’ turnips, ‘Purple Top White Globe’ turnips, and turnip greens.

I have never grown turnips before, let alone eaten them, so I was excited to try something new. They are very similar to growing radishes — a plant I’ve only ever needed to grow for a science project in middle school — so I was not too intimidated.

I was so excited to finally see something sprout out of the ground after almost two weeks of waiting (granted my patience could use a little practice). The ‘Seven Top’ and ‘Purple Top White Globe’ turnips sprouted at the same time while the greens trailed about a week behind.

My biggest faux pas when growing my turnips was not thinning them enough. I dug the holes 3-inches apart and put about three seeds in each hole. Thinking natural selection would allow the seeds to duke it out underground, I did not follow the thinning process as well as I should have. It is recommended to thin the seedlings 4 to 6 inches apart when they are 4 inches high. If I had followed this instruction, I would have probably yielded turnips larger and wider than my pinky toe. Thankfully, I was able to salvage a few plants and managed to end up with a few that actually resembled turnips.

The first frost back in October nipped at my turnip greens, but I was able to harvest a few leaves to bring home and cook. Uyen, another intern, had added her radish greens in a soup, so I decided to follow suit and try the same. I found a vegetable soup recipe by Southern Living specifically for turnip greens, and it ended up being very simple to make. It called for the addition of ham and onions, and the turnip greens were extremely similar to kale in regard to its preparation, stalky texture, and hearty taste.

I picked some ‘Purple Top White Globes’ turnips from the plot so I could give my family a little tasting for our Thanksgiving dinner. The few I gathered were not big enough to serve by themselves, so I cut them into small chunks along with some beets and carrots. I tossed the veggies in olive oil, sea salt, pepper, fresh thyme, and a tad of brown sugar and spread them on a sheet pan to roast in the oven for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees. In the end, these three root vegetables looked pretty displaying their fall colors on the table.  

About the Author:

Nicole Reisinger is a senior multiplatform journalism major at the University of Maryland. This autumn, she is an editorial intern at Washington Gardener Magazine.

Lessons Learned: Radishes

By Uyen Nguyen

Throughout my time with Washington Gardener magazine, two other interns and I got the opportunities to plant, water, weed, and harvest our very own vegetables with editor and publisher Kathy Jentz. We each grew them separately in Kathy’s plot in the Fenton Community Garden in Silver Spring, MD.

Growing up, I loved eating daikon radishes — usually pickled or in soups, but I never tried any other kinds of radishes, even though there are way too many to name. So, this semester I chose to grow four different types of radishes: ‘White Icicle’, ‘French Breakfast’, ‘Cherry Belle’, and ‘Roxanne F1’ (a 2015 All-America Selections winner)

Before we planted them, Kathy Jentz told me radishes are easy to grow in the fall because they are cool-season vegetables and mature very fast, but I never imagined how right she’d be — the 'French Breakfast' and 'Roxanne' radishes were ready to be harvested in just a month. (Planted Sept. 10, harvested Oct. 11)

Disclaimer: We pulled the ‘Roxanne’ radishes and replaced them with the ‘Cherry Belle’ radishes one week after the first harvest (Oct. 18) and a frost hit, so the 'Cherry Belle' didn’t grow as fast as the others.

The ‘French Breakfast’ radishes are the oblong ones shown below and they grew to be about 1.5 inches long and 0.75 inches wide. These radishes are tall and skinny. Since they stuck a bit above ground, they were vulnerable to pests, but you can just cut the bitten parts off.

The ‘Roxanne’ radishes are the small, round ones below. These grew to be about 1-1.5 inches in diameter and were the most spicy or "sharp" out of the bunch, but were very easy to cut into tiny slices because of the crispiness. I ate these and the 'French Breakfast' radishes raw with hummus.

The ‘White Icicle’ were last to be harvested, but they grew the longest. I think these were my favorite to eat because they were less spicy. They were definitely my favorite to pull because of the gratification I got from seeing the almost 5-inch beauties. I put these radishes in my soup and they added tons of flavor to my dish — it was like a spicy carrot.

Things I learned from my experience:

·      Radishes aren’t spicy the way jalapeno peppers are spicy, but they give you the same "nose-tickle" that follows when biting into something spicy.

·      Radish greens are edible! When handling them, be careful of their tiny prickles. The greens have a delicious spinach-like flavor when cooked.

·      Gardens are like an outdoor classroom — it’s fun to plant vegetables, even if you are not a typical gardener because the care you put into your plot makes you appreciate the food you eat even more.

About the Author:

Uyen Nguyen is a senior multiplatform journalism major at the University of Maryland. This autumn, she is an editorial intern at Washington Gardener Magazine.

Lessons Learned: Spinach and Broccoli

By Maeve Dunigan

Throughout my fall internship with Washington Gardener Magazine I was able to experiment with growing two different vegetables. Though neither attempt yielded particularly successful results, the experience still proved a fulfilling one that I learned a lot from.

My first attempt was back in September when I planted a ‘Gangbusters’ variety of Spinach. I planted two rows of seeds and followed the directions on the packet by ensuring the seeds were well spaced apart and about an inch deep in the soil. Unfortunately, after about two weeks, the spinach still had not shown any growth. There were small green sprigs, but they were very hard to differentiate from the surrounding weeds.

Luckily, Washington Gardener Magazine's editor Kathy Jentz suggested that I turn over the small plot and re-plant with some already grown Broccoli ‘Artwork’ seedling plants.

Planting the broccoli was fairly easy. Though the soil was a bit hard to dig through do to cold and lack of rain, I was able to dig out six holes, one for each of my broccoli plants. In order to ensure that these plants were protected from pests, we covered them with a protective row-cover blanket.

Unfortunately, the pests still managed to sneak in. About a week after planting the broccoli, we realized that slugs had been chewing on some of the leaves. After checking to make sure it wasn’t harmful to use around edible plants, Kathy applied Sluggo, a slug and snail killing bait, around the plants.

The Sluggo proved a success. When I returned a week later, the plants were growing again and showed larger and fuller leaves.

Overall, this experience taught me a lot about the trials involved in growing edibles during the fall season. I am hopeful that the broccoli I planted eventually produces some sort of yield, or, at the very least, does not become another meal for the slugs.  

About the Author: Maeve Dunigan is a senior multiplatform journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park. This autumn, she is an editorial intern at Washington Gardener Magazine.