THE 2024 CATALOGUE IS HERE!!! And it's our best yet. Featuring over 550 crops — 100 of them new — this is our biggest catalogue ever. NOTE: After delaying most shipments due to the extreme cold weather, we are working through the backlog now. Thank you for your patience!

"Whatsit" Turnip
"Whatsit" Turnip
"Whatsit" Turnip

"Whatsit" Turnip

Regular price $3.50 Sale

Brassica rapa

Origin: Unknown

Improvement status: Cultivar

Seeds per packet: ~250

Germination tested 11/2023: 86%

Life cycle: Biennial

This mystery turnip seed comes to us from our friend Chris Homanics of Head, Hands, Heart Nursery and Seed in Washington. Normally, if a grower came to us and said "I have seeds for a turnip, but I don't know what turnip," we would probably say, "No thanks." But when it's Chris Homanics, we say, "OK, tell us more."

We'll let Chris pick up the story:

"A few years back, I was given some turnip seed from a friend. He believed it was a rare rutabaga-type root vegetable from Italy, but after growing it out, it became clear that this was something else. It also became clear that it was a high-quality staple turnip — so I let them go to seed and produced a seed crop. “Well, what is it?” you ask, and frankly I don’t know. I suspect that this may just be a good selection of American Purple Top White Globe turnip — the standard American turnip since at least 1885, when it appeared in James J.H. Gregory's catalogue — however, it may indeed be an Italian turnip. Or it could be something else entirely. But, what I do know is that it has been an unexpected surprise.

This is a crisp, white-fleshed turnip for people who need a high-yielding and high-quality turnip for homestead or market farm. From seed, this variety balls up quickly and can be harvested in the baby stage, but I prefer to seed them in July and let them go until fall or winter for harvest when they are the size of a large fist. If sown early in the season, they can bulk up to the size of a basketball and yet still remain tender! Overall, the flavor is mild either raw or cooked. This variety has performed very well when dry-farmed after seedlings have been established, and this seed was produced in dry-farm conditions with no supplemental irrigation."

Since the only other root turnip we sell is the 'Six Root Grex' — a diverse interbreeding mix — we figured some of you might like a more uniform, standard-issue turnip, so we're happy to add Chris's "Whatsit" to the catalogue!