THANKS to the credit crunch and shrinking household budgets, the turnip is staging a comeback across the UK with one leading supermarket reporting that sales have rocketed by 75 per cent in 12 months.
They are also an extremely easy vegetable to grow and can be sown in spring if you want summer varieties the size of golf balls for eating raw in summer. Maincrop varieties can be sown in summer for cropping from mid- October.
Turnips belong to the cabbage family and need a firm, non-acid soil with reasonable drainage. They need to be thinned out when the seedlings are large enough to handle, in stages, until the plants are 25cm (maincrop) or 15cm (early varieties) apart.
Keep weeds down and water during periods of dry weather or you will have woody roots.
Pull out early varieties like radishes when they are still small.
Harvesting generally starts in October and in most areas you can leave them in the ground and lift as required.
Alternatively store them in layers of sand in a stout box in a cool shed.
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