Those in the know have been long been savouring these crunchy, thin skinned root vegetables, perfectly eaten raw and unpeeled out of hand, or sliced into salads or crudite, with a pleasing, slightly sweet and fresh flavour that is tinged by a touch of musky piquantness. Once I cautiously ate my first bunch of salad radishes I was hooked, so much so that I now grow them every year in increasingly larger quantities.
Although it seems ridiculous to me now, for some reason, I thought I disliked turnips. I couldn't even remember when I last ate a turnip, or how I came to this opinion, but nonetheless I remained stubbornly turnip averse. Despite myself, during many farmers market trips I couldn’t help but notice pretty bunches of small, smooth, white orbs, usually sidled up to the radishes, larger than their neighbours but not the hefty rough globes that I associated with the word turnip. Finally my curiosity and common sense got the better of me and I took home a bundle of what turned out to be salad turnips, an entirely new discovery to me.
The variety I grow is Hakurei Turnip, a smaller white fleshed salad turnip with deliciously edible leaves, meaning that each harvest of these root vegetables garners you two distinct yields, maximizing available growing space and productivity and making these a tasty must have in my garden each year. I have found Hakurei Turnips easy to grow using the Square Foot Garden method, planting 9 per square foot. These cool weather loving seeds easily germinate and sprout in the early spring or fall, and once the seedlings are an inch or two tall, I carefully thin away all but the strongest looking seedling in each spot and leave them largely unattended, except for regular watering, until harvest time.
Because my whole family is now infatuated with these crispy little globules, I have taken to succession planting them, planting sets a few weeks apart so that they don’t all mature simultaneously, allowing us to enjoy our harvests over a longer period. By late spring and early summer, all of my turnip harvests are complete, meaning I can use the same spot in the garden for another summer or fall planting. Of course, by the end of summer I will certainly be planting a few more sets for cooler weather growing and fall eating. I love these salad turnips so much that I am actually going to try and grow a variety of the larger, standard turnip to see if I can change my mind about those as well!
These salad turnips make for excellent crudite, are always a delight added into a crisp salad, or are lovely served sliced and sprinkled with sesame seeds alongside
Essential Baked Tofu Cubes, steamed rice, and Fresh Garden Furikake made with the turnip greens or whatever other greens you have on hand.
I have only seen harvested white salad turnips available for sale in farmers markets in Ontario in the spring and fall, and once you try them and if you have some gardening space I am sure you will want to grow them yourself as well! The seeds I use for Hakurei Turnip come from this online Canadian source, and I have found the germination rate and productivity to be excellent.
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