We’re planting turnips this year, not because they are companion crops or because we love them, but because I read that turnip and radish seed, planted with clover, will boost nitrogen content. We’re already planting some radish as companions to other plants for pest control which will go to seed, so I decided to plant some turnips as well, and let some of them go to seed. We can practice collecting seeds using turnips and radishes as the test subjects, and then follow up that seed-collecting practice/test with the next one, trying out the clover trick to see if there is really a beneficial effect on the soil.

Anyway, bottom line, we’ll have turnips. Incidentally, bio-intensive farming literature lists turnips as one of the “calorie crops,” a wonder food ranking up there with potatoes in terms of food calorie yield per square foot. So, there are lots of reasons to grow turnips, but one problem—we have no idea how to cook them, and so far we’ve both made it to our 40s with the impression that we don’t really like them much. Or at all. We still have a bag of them in the back of the fridge that came in our organics box by mistake, that we’ve been at a loss how to use.

Friday was my night to cook (our family rotates among the four of us) and I decided to find a turnip recipe that I thought we could stomach, to go along with the rest of dinner as a side dish. Here’s the internet recipe that I thought had the best chance of success. After sampling this dish, I think we are now at an “I like turnips” ratio of 2.5:4.0, and there’s a good chance that with a few repetitions we can raise the ratio to 3:4. There’s one stubborn holdout who probably will never try the things.

Dan

It is undeniable now, with temperatures in the mid 70s to mid 80s, summer weather is over.  No more upper 90s nor 100+ degree days.  I like this.  I feel like I can work easily in this weather.  Yesterday it was cloudy all day long, which made for a beautiful day and kept me energized. In places where I already have the t-tape and no more cash crop action, I am putting in a winter cover crop.  Vetch and Rye are my choices.  Vetch because it fixes its own nitrogen and… Read the rest of this article »