Fenton Friday: Turnip Harvest

It was another very wet week and cooler-than-average temperatures - but I'm not complaining! The heat looks like it will arrive soon, so I'm frantically trying to weed and switch the plot over to summer crops.

I pulled all the 'White Globe' Turnips. They grew to be big and beautiful. I donated a bunch to a local food collection and gave the rest to friends.

The Broccoli plants are a mess. They are infested with whiteflies or some similar pest - despite the covercloth we placed over them. I need to yank them all soon and will maybe do a Squash in their spot.

I picked a handful of Blackberries, one pod off the scrawny Pea vines, cut some Lettuce for salads, and Cilantro for garnishes. I also pulled one Beet and a few Radishes to test them.

Look ahead, we need to pull the rest of the Radishes and Beets, then plant our Tomato and Pepper seedlings. 

Then I need to restore my cutting garden - the Dahlias are all back and getting big, but I want to add Lisianthus seedlings and start Cosmos from seeds too.

At the pollinator garden strip, the Calendula and Common Mikweed are blooming as are donated Bachelor's Buttons and some Violas I transfered from my home garden. The Zinnia and Marigold seedlings are growing stronger and I should be able to thin some out this week.

What are you growing in your edible garden this week?

About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 14th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton"  into the Search box above (at the top, left on this blog).

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.