8 April 2010  |  Gardening

Turnips

This year, I started my garden a little earlier (hopefully the 1/2 inch of snow we got the other day didn’t do any damage…). Last year, a lot of my vegetables were kind of stunted (except TURNIPS- more on that later), so I decided to add a bunch of compost and topsoil to the garden.  Hopefully this will also make the soil a little looser so my root veggies (carrots, beets, parsnips) will be easier to pull out.

Turnips.  Last year, I planted a whole row of them and realized that they aren’t my favorite.  I can eat them (Dusty won’t) but I never look forward to eating them- there is always something I’d rather eat.  Anyway, last year everything in the garden was a little stunted EXCEPT the turnips.  They were luscious, thriving, even bulging out of the ground.  It was like some kind of cruel joke!  So I decided that it wouldn’t really be wasting them, if I just tilled them into the soil- they could be compst for next year’s delicious vegetables.  But even after a few snows, they were still going strong and looking perky.

So we tilled them into the soil.

And I planted seeds a few days ago.

And here is what I see in my garden:

Yes, those are last year’s chopped up turnips sprouting fresh greens!  I have to say, I think I am going to have to let them grow and eat them, just for being so tenacious!

Also new for this year’s garden is a potato box made out of recycled shutters.

I’ve never grown potatoes before, but apparently they will grow in just about anything so I just layered some leaves from the compost pile with some peat moss and some potting soil and voila!  Potato box.  Hopefully it works out.  I bought my seed potatoes (which just look like regular potatoes), cut them up into pieces (so they don’t rot) and stuck them in the ground.  The pieces were looking a little sad though, so I’m not sure if they are going to make it.