A fast cool-season root that yields twice: peppery greens inside a month, then a crisp globe a few weeks later.
Brassica rapa subsp. rapa · also called Salad turnip, Summer turnip
Windows are counted from the average date of your last spring frost.
Few crops turn a bare patch of cool soil into food faster, and the roots hold in the ground into hard frost. Both the root and the leaves are eaten, so a short row feeds you twice from one sowing.
A little history. Turnip is a biennial: the swollen root is a first-year food store, spent on flowers the second year. Cold weather converts part of that stored starch to sugar, so fall-grown roots taste sweeter.
Sow seeds ½ inch (13 mm) deep, and aim for 4 inches (10 cm) between plants once thinned. Cover seed lightly and keep the top half-inch moist until sprouts show. Break any crust with a fine spray after hard rain. Seedlings emerge in 3–10 days.
Steady water, twice a week in warm weather; never let the bed swing wet to bone dry. Water when the top inch of soil feels dry. Aim for about 1 inch per week including rain.
Work compost in before sowing; side-dress once at 3–4 weeks if leaves look pale. What to use: compost plus a low-nitrogen blend such as 5–10-10; heavy nitrogen builds tops, not roots.
Pick only two or three outer leaves per plant if you want greens and a root; stripping the tops stalls root growth.
It's ready when roots 2–3 in across, shoulders standing just above soil and smooth to the touch. Greens are ready at 4–6 in tall. Grip the base of the leaves and pull straight up, easing the soil with a hand fork in dry ground. For greens only, cut outer leaves an inch above the crown and let the center regrow.
Twist off tops to a half-inch stub, then store unwashed roots in a perforated bag in the crisper for 3–4 months. Use greens within 3 days.
Sow a short row every 2–3 weeks while soil stays below 75 °F (24 °C); small frequent sowings beat one large one that goes woody.
In mild winters, leave roots in place under 6 in of straw and lift as needed. Plants left over winter flower and set seed the second spring.
Garden Pea
Peas bank nitrogen in root nodules, and most of it reaches the soil the following season as those roots break down. Follow a spring pea patch with turnips, or grow peas nearby and leave the roots in the ground when you clear the vines.
Nasturtium
Aphids and flea beetles often settle on nasturtium foliage in preference to turnip leaves. It only helps if you check the trap plants weekly and cut off or wash down the colonized shoots before they spill over.
Dill
Dill's flat flower heads feed hoverflies, lacewings, and tiny parasitic wasps, all of which hunt the aphids and caterpillars that work turnip tops. Let a few plants flower at the bed edge rather than cutting every stem for the kitchen.
Sweet Alyssum
A low ribbon of alyssum blooms through the cool season and is one of the most reliable hoverfly feeders in a vegetable bed; hoverfly larvae eat aphids off turnip leaves. Tuck it along the row where it will not shade the crop.
Lettuce
Lettuce roots stay in the top few inches while the turnip swells deeper, so the two share a bed without fighting for water. Both like the same cool weather, which makes them easy to sow and clear on the same schedule.
Thyme
Strongly scented low herbs can make it harder for cabbage butterflies and flea beetles to home in on turnip leaves by smell. The effect is modest under heavy pest pressure, so treat it as a supplement to row cover, not a replacement.
Radish
Both are fast root crops filling the same few inches of soil, so interplanted rows crowd each other and neither root sizes up cleanly. They also share flea beetles and root maggots, which stacks pressure in one spot. Grow them in separate blocks under separate covers.
Fennel
Fennel roots release compounds that stunt most garden vegetables, turnip seedlings included. Grown well away in its own corner it earns space, since the flowers feed hoverflies and tiny parasitic wasps that patrol the vegetable beds.
Strawberry
Old charts keep strawberries and cabbage-family crops apart, and no mechanism has been demonstrated. The practical reason to separate them is different: pulling turnips disturbs shallow strawberry roots and runners.
Give the cabbage family 4 years away from this spot before any of its relatives return.
The tomato family, the pea and bean family or the carrot family thrive in this ground next season.
A heavy feeder that leaves the soil looser than it found it as the roots come out. Keep cabbage-family crops out of this bed for 4 years; follow with the tomato family, with peas or beans, or with carrot-family crops such as carrots and parsley.
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