Roots & tubers
Salad turnips (Hakurei)
Fast and sweet.
- Outside
- Direct early Apr, again mid Aug
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Little and often; never dry, or they turn pithy
- Harvest
- May to Jun, then Sep to Oct, golf ball size
Care
- Water
- Little and often. These race to the plate in weeks, not months, and never drying out is what keeps them crisp and sweet; a bed left to dry turns the roots coarse and hot. Check the top inch by finger and water before it stalls.
- Sow
- Direct sow early April, then again mid August, a quarter to half an inch deep and about an inch apart in wide bands a foot apart. Thin to 3 inches once they are up. Roots come fast, in days rather than weeks, near golf ball size in about 5 weeks.
- Feed
- A light, fast feeder. A shovel of compost or castings worked in at sowing carries the whole short crop; skip the liquid feed and go easy on nitrogen, which pushes leaf at the root's expense. Steady moisture does more for these than any feed.
- Ready
- Pull young, up to about 2 inches across, from May and again in fall; anything bigger loses the crisp, mild character. The cool fall crop is the sweetest of the year. No peeling needed.
- Trouble
- Shot-hole pinpricks across the tops: flea beetles, so net from sowing day. Scored tunnels in the root itself: cabbage root maggot, the wound that actually matters, so cover the row until June or sow after that flight.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 3–5 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily in warm spells; bags dry far faster than a bed, and a dry turnip turns coarse and hot. 20 to 30 sec on the shower dial until it runs from the seams.
- Sow
- Sow a wide band across the bag and thin to a few plants.
Hakurei salad turnips are white, apple-crisp, and sweet enough to eat like fruit, five weeks after an April or August sowing. They repay less patience than anything else this good.
Growing
Direct sow in early April and again in mid August, thin to three inches, and keep the bed damp; these are roots grown at a sprint, and the sprint runs on water. Pull at golf ball size from May, then again in fall, when cool weather makes the sweetest roots of the year. Heat turns them sharp and pithy, so the two windows are the whole season.
Varieties
Hakurei is the variety that made the type famous, and there is little reason to stray; White Lady is the acceptable understudy.
Pests
Netting from sowing day is the plan here, since flea beetles chew the tops and cabbage root maggot tunnels the root itself, the one wound that actually matters. Covered rows come up flawless.
In the kitchen
Eaten raw with salt, halved into salads, or glazed whole in butter with the greens wilted in at the end. Peeling is unnecessary and slightly insulting.