Tag Archives: turnips

A Fall Update

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That first real hint of the winter to come rolled in yesterday. We were in the middle of conducting a workshop for fifteen participants on how to raise a homestead hog when we all felt the temperature drop. Felt more keenly since all were dressed for a sunny sixty plus degree day. What we received instead was an overcast windy day with temps dropping into the mid-fifties.

Odd how our bodies adapt, soon a day with the temperature rising to 55 will remind us of the warmth to come in spring and summer. For now the change has us reaching for cups of hot tea and thinking of warm hearty foods.

Lambs: The lamb, injured by a dog, is recovering nicely. Her appetite is strong and she is very active with no trace of a limp. She is still confined in the hospital ward, aka the dog pen, and receives a shot of penicillin twice daily. No recurrence of maggots, thankfully. The old injured flesh has fallen away leaving large circle, perhaps 12 inches in diameter of new pink flesh. A smaller area of about four inches is still scabbed over. But consider where she started and you will agree she has come a long way.

The other lambs are healthy and close to 100 pounds each. A date with the processor has been set and they will make the fateful truck journey the week of Thanksgiving; A cruel irony for the lambs and for the customers plenty to be thankful. The injured lamb will remain and join the other ewe lambs as breeding stock.

Gardening: I love fall and winter gardening. The bugs are at a minimum, the weeds are sluggish and whatever you plant seems to thrive. A bonus is the absolute thrill and joy to walk out on a cool morning and harvest beautiful ten pound Hubbard squashes.

Hubbards

The squash patch has another fifty to harvest in the next four weeks as long as we can avoid a heavy frost. Perfect for stews, we love our winter squash!

The turnips and the collards are all up and thriving. The mustard greens were the first to reach a harvestable size this past week. Sweet potatoes are still holding out and will not be harvested until the leaves begin to die back.

Bees and horses: If the weather warms enough today we will complete our fall harvest of honey. We hope to be able to get forty pounds of rich dark honey, more than enough to see us through to next fall. Having your own honey in the cupboard is real food security. Like Tolkien’s character Beorn in The Hobbit, we feel capable of shape shifting and accomplishing mighty deeds with our honey surplus.

Last night after a nourishing stew of roast pork, greens and potatoes we had delivery of a new draft horse to the farm. A Haflinger named “Candy”, an eight year old mare, Amish trained for farm work. An absolute beauty in appearance and temperament, she offloaded easily and we secured her in the corral before turning into bed.

Well, the animals are signaling by bleats, whinnies, meows, crows, cackles, snorts and honks that our presence is requested outside. Everyone have a great week.

Brassica Rapa: the humble turnip

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Brassica Rapa, the humble turnip, that poor misunderstood veggie, fodder for livestock and disdained by cooks. Out of my, not inconsiderable, gardening library, few newer books devote any space to growing turnips. Even the heirloom books devote less than a page to the vegetable and its varieties. Heirloom turnips are just not as sexy as peppers, squash and tomatoes.

But, speaking with the unconquerable zeal of the converted, I am here to testify to the glory of the turnip. The past few years, the turnip has been a revelation as I have branched out with varieties and vegetables that would not have grown in the semi-tropical climate of my southern Louisiana childhood.

Over the past years I noticed and admired the winter gardens of greens growing next to other farmhouses. Even in snow, one sees those wonderful greens poking out. But, I never attempted growing them myself, until a few years back.

Turnips require very little care, tolerate a wide range of soils and positively thrive in cold temperatures. You can harvest the leaves a few at a time off of one plant, as needed. Or, harvest the whole plant.

After feeding the animals on a typical fall night, Cindy and I might walk to the garden and pull a turnip. Accompanying a typical dinner of ham with the turnip greens and the turnip, mashed with garlic and fresh yogurt. Follow this meal the next morning by frying the mashed turnips for breakfast as a turnip-egg hash. This will make a believer out of you.

My older gardening books mention raising turnips as a given. One of the most enthusiastic writers of the kitchen garden, Angelo Pellegrini, an Italian immigrant to Seattle, made turnips part of his spring and winter gardens every year. (I do recommend his book “The Food-Lover’s Garden). Even Plutarch relates the story of the Roman general who retired to his small farm turning down offers of gold for the delights of a simple meal of boiled turnips.

Thomas Jefferson mentions growing turnips 24 times in his wonderful Garden notebooks. Turnips were part of his kitchen garden every year at Monticello. And, he does not neglect their importance as a fodder for livestock. In his farm notes he leaves these observations: “sow an acre of turnips for every ten sheep. Turn them out to graze on the turnips when the grass dies (mid-December). A pint of seed sows an acre of ground. Turnips do not exhaust the land if dug before Christmas. Turnips sowed on the wheat stubble succeed well without hoeing and folded off with sheep are very advantageous.”

Personally, I do not care for turnips simply boiled. But, substitute, or add, in any recipe calling for potatoes, or roast them with other root vegetables, from leaf to root what a wonderfully productive plant.