May, 3rd Week - Turnips And Runners
Dirty Nails writes from personal experience, having supplied his family of four over the years with enough fresh produce to eat their fill. His book combines his love of gardening with the natural pleasures of being outdoors and 'in amongst it'. The author seeks to de-mystify the art of kitchen and allotment gardening, making the thrills, spills, triumphs and tribulations accessible to all-comers, whatever their level of gardening experience.
TURNIPS AND RUNNERS
Turnips
This has been a very exciting week for Dirty Nails. Turnips of the F1 Market Express variety were sown in trays in the greenhouse around mid-February, and then planted outside a month later. The golf-ball sized roots, slightly conical and creamy coloured with a pinky-purple top, have all been pulled and eaten over the last few days. F1 Market Express is an extremely fast growing ‘nip which can be ready for harvesting and eating 50 days or so after sowing.
Dirty Nails will be sowing turnips in short lines every couple of weeks until June. He rakes the seedbed into a fine tilth, and sows the round, brown seeds, each the size of a pinhead, thinly and direct into a ½ inch (2 cm) deep drill. ‘Nips like plenty to drink so he keeps them well watered. When the seedlings have appeared, he thins them out to final spacings of 3 inches (8 cm) to give them room to swell. Pigeons are partial to turnip tops so he always protects them with twigs or wire netting.
Runner beans
Runner beans have been planted out this week too.
They have come on well in their pots and are showing two pairs of leaves. Dirty Nails is growing his runners against a southwest facing fence, up canes 8 inches (20 cm) apart. He prepared the ground early in the year by trench composting. This involved almost filling the dug-out growing area with kitchen and garden waste, and topping up with soil. He is hoping that this goodness in the ground will feed the hungry bean plants and give a bumper crop. They need some training until they get themselves wrapped around the canes, but there is little else to do now except keep moist, weed-free and wait with eager anticipation.
NATURAL HISTORY IN THE GARDEN
Badgers in May
Having a fleece handy, ready to throw over the beans or hardening-off courgettes if there is a risk of a late frost, is a good idea and could save a tender crop.
VEGETABLE SNIPPETS
SOME FACTS ABOUT TURNIPS
Humans have cultivated turnips for thousands of years on account of the plump, edible, swollen stalk (not actually a root at all) which makes such good eating. They have been a feature of the European diet since Neolithic times, some 3000 BC. In the East wild turnips are recorded as being raised as a crop in India since 1500 BC. The seeds were pressed to produce cooking oil. Ancient Greeks and Romans enjoyed the culinary virtues of this plant too.
Turnips grow well in temperate climates across the world, and in northern Europe were a staple foodstuff of the poor until the 1500s when potatoes arrived from the Americas. In the 1800s what is now central London was a sea of veg. Turnips were intensively raised in the market gardens of the area at that time.
