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#240046 Oct 24th, 2008 at 10:15 AM
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I raised them as a kid and remember getting them from the garden into December.I've got some in the ground but they're late. Biggest are ~1" diameter. I would like to get some good out of them but I'm worried we might get a night that's too clod and damage them. I watch the weather closely. If I knew what they could stand and saw that it was going to get too cold I could quickly harvest them and at least get the greens. Question is: What can they stand?

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Check this out. It says you should cover them with straw or some type of mulch and you can harvest even after it has snowed.

http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2006/02/in-garden-lowly-turnips-are-tip-top.html



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Thanks Bestofour,

They didn't specify a specific temp. But lots of good info.

Something tells me it was 10F before they got damaged. Maybe that was the bulbs? And maybe ~18F before the tops got damaged? Where's an old-time farmer when you need them?

The biggest are now ~3" and they're coming on nicely. But most are about like fat hen's eggs. It has been below freezing several times. The coldest was ~28F. I've gotten greens from them several times so at least all is not lost. Maybe they'll still make a full crop.

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I came across a better list than what I'm posting here, but can't seem to find it. This may help some.

http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/vegetables/coldtoler.html

Cold Tolerance in Vegetables

Q. You have often mentioned cold tolerant vegetable crops and those which are very susceptible to frosty injury. Could you list these and temperature lows which they can tolerate?

A. This is very difficult to do and be accurate since cold tolerance depends on preconditioning. For instance, if broccoli has been growing in warm conditions and temperatures drop below 22 degrees F., it will probably be killed. If these same broccoli plants had experienced cool weather, they would probably survive the sudden cold.

In general, a frost (31-33 degrees F.) will kill beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, peas, pepper, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and watermelon.

Colder temperatures (26-31 degrees F.) may burn foliage but will not kill broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, mustard, onion, radish, and turnip.

The real cold weather champs are beets, Brussels sprouts, carrots, collards, kale, parsley, and spinach.


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Here's another table (still not what I was looking for).

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/fallgarden.html




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Turnips, are frost hardy. They will germinate in soil as low as 40*F and will continue to grow until temperature drop as low as 15*F. As Sheri said in her post, you can protect them from frost by using straw mulch. [and leave them in the ground, but dig them before the ground freezes.]



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Now there remains one little question- what on earth do you do with turnips? They are one of the things I promised myself when I was a kid that I would never make my kids eat, and so far I've kept that promise! Could there be ways to make them edible?

I did try brussels sprouts on my kids once- we decided they were for rabbits only. Maybe we don't know how to cook these things properly?


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Opions are all over the board. papito - you're closer to what I remember.

stevie_g,

Been there, done that. When I was a kid I wasn't crazy about them. I don't think my mom was either. We raised them every year. I don't remember seeing my dad eat them either. I mostly remember feeding them to the hogs. They also served as green manure. Too many were woody or bitter hot. All very appetising thoughts. But I do remember getting a rare nice turnip when I was a kid - so it wasn't all bad.

So I got into a patch of them a few years ago and they weren't the woody/bitter things I remembered. Maybe the varieties have improved - maybe it's just I've acquired a taste for them. Maybe we were planting too early. I seem to remember some extra large turnips. I knew then that you needed to wait or the first hard frost to mild them down some. I can't account for it.

I asked the old man and woman who's large patch we were raiding how they fixed them. She told me to fix them exactly like fried potatoes. Mix them 50/50 with sliced or cubed potatoes, start the turnips a few minutes ahead of the potatoes, salt and pepper to taste, add onion if you like. I tried it and it was good. I've also heard of them being mashed with potatoes and used in stews as well. But mild ones I like raw. The greens I'm not crazy for. But I could see if you really liked greens they would be a treat. I'm still polishing my recipe.

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I looks bigger in person. It's nearly the size of a softball.


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Thanks, dirtclod, maybe I should give that a go. That sounds like how some Indian friends of mine do potatoes, but they throw in a cup of fresh finely chopped coriander right near the end of cooking (and they don't use onion for that recipe). I've tried this a couple of times, and the kids love it. I guess we could try it with turnip.


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It has been unusually and persistently colder than it normally is this time of year. I thought I would take some pictures of the turnips reaction to cold temps. They have been through a number of freezes before I took these pictures. At dawn they would look like they had a killing freeze and would be sagged to the ground. But as the day progressed they would rise back up and look as though there hadn't been a freeze. But when it started getting below 20F they took a lot longer to recover. I've still have hope of adding a big greens harvest to the smaller ones I've done. And there's a number of softball sized turnips, along with many apple sized and egg sized. They were late but maybe it was still worth it.


~19 degrees this morning:
[Linked Image]

~24 degrees this morning:
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~11 degrees this morning:
[Linked Image]
BTW - the discoloration in the last two pictures is simply dappled sunlight as the sun was just coming up.

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The turnip tops were starting to look grim so I harvested them yesterday.

[Linked Image]
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That's a 5-gallon bucket full...less a few that were given away before the picture was taken. I would have gotten 3-4 times that if I had gotten them out 3 weeks earlier.
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The biggest one was ~4-1/2".
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I didn't do scientific data gathering and recording. But what I saw told me the tops could take breif dips below 27F and recover. But repeated dips below 20F would lead to the tops failing and a type of crown rot setting up. I found 1 turnip I had to throw out because it was turning an off-white. It seemed the problem started in the top. The first few dips below 27F the tops would look like they had taken a killing freeze. But as soon as it warmed up for a few hours they would recover to the point you couldn't tell anything happened. When it started getting in the teens they would recover...but you could see some damage. We had an unseasonable cold streatch for this time of year.The turnips didn't get a chance to come back from those teen damages so I can't tell you if they could recover.


They sure came out with a good flavor. They were mild and sweet.

So I'd say harvest them if there is going to be a stretch of temps (say 4-5 days) below ~18 in a 10 day period. Do the same if it is going to go below 10F. Otherwise, when you see damage to the stems turning off-white/sagging over, harvest them.

Last edited by dirtclod; Dec 3rd, 2008 at 09:56 AM.

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