Hi Tiny Gardener here…
As the spring planting edges closer and closer, I’ve been thinking about making space for my new spring plants, this means harvesting what’s left of the plants I been growing in my mini polytunnel over the winter. I’ve never grown turnips before and I was a bit unsure of when they would be ripe enough for picking.
I looked up how to know if your turnips are ready to harvest and the advice was to gently feel around the base of the plant. It’s quite tricky with these root plants as the bit you need to see is under the soil. I placed my hand at the bottom of the leaves and began to slightly move the earth to feel for a root. To my surprise I could not feel a bulb at all. The leaves (although slow growing at first) were looking quite healthy so I decided to pull a couple of them out of the soil to see what was going on.
I wriggled the plant free of the soil and gently lifted it out of the soil holding the base of the plant. As you can see from my photos, there was no turnip bulb to be seen only a very small carrot shaped root instead. I had to chuckle a little, however I wanted to find out why this could have happened.
Whilst researching harvesting turnips I came across a few reasons that may have contributed to the stunted growth of my turnips, here is what I found:
- Soil too dense/rocky – this one could be possible as the soil could be tightly packed in this raised bed
- Underwatering – I’m quite confident this shouldn’t have been the reason, the cloche has been providing a really good watering system for these plants over the winter
- Fresh compost – this I did do. Apparently turnips don’t really like fresh compost so its better to plant them in the second year after adding fresh compost to your soil
- Nitrogen Rich Soil – not sure about this one
It’s very possible that the newly fresh compost was a contributing factor in my turnips not growing properly. I will have another go this year, now that the compost has been in for a year and see if it makes a difference. Alternatively I could plant them in their own container using fresh top soil instead.
I now have one more Autumn plant left to harvest, my radish plants. The plants are looking really healthy and have grown well. I have been feeling around the base of the plant but haven’t felt a big enough bulb yet, although I think I can see one there so I am keeping my fingers crossed. I’ll keep you posted on how they get on.
