When to remove turnips from the garden

This representative of vegetable crops is considered forgotten, turnip appeared in Russia long before the appearance of now familiar vegetable crops. The peasants ate turnips not just fresh, but also steamed, boiled and fried. It contains a huge amount of vitamins and minerals. It is interesting that the maximum content of vitamins is found in turnips both in the summer season and in the spring season. Now we will consider when it is better to remove turnips from the garden.

When to remove turnips

The time of collecting turnip, or as it is called in the common people "solar root crop", depends on the time when you planted its planting material.

- If you have no desire to cultivate a large number of fruits for moving to maintenance, then plant a vegetable crop at the beginning of the spring season, immediately after thawing the snow cover and a little warming up of the soil. In most of our country, this time period begins from the second week of the second spring month or in the first week of the last spring month. This means that in the second summer month you can eat the first root vegetable filled with juice. The fruits will ripen evenly for about twenty-one to twenty-eight days, and they must be removed according to the degree of achievement of the vegetable crop of the required dimensions.

- To be removed for the winter season for keeping, the solar root crop must ripen no earlier than the first autumn month. To do this, in most of our country, turnips should be sown in the first summer month or in the first decade of the second summer month. It is possible to postpone the collection of late turnips until the onset of the first cold weather, but it is strictly forbidden to allow them to freeze, especially if you want to support the fruits until the second winter month, or even longer.

- Summer residents with experience, or simply people who love a sunny root crop, in parts of our country with a longer summer season, cultivate a double harvest in three months, correctly selecting the varieties. An early-ripening solar root vegetable is used for making salads, for this, plant it in the spring season, and by the second summer month it is necessary to clean the ridge for another sowing for maintenance in the winter season.

- If the planting of a vegetable crop turned out to be inhibited by the unexpected arrival of cold weather, do not rush to get the crop out of the soil, it is recommended to wait until the cold weather subsides. Frozen turnips have a nasty bitter taste, lose their firm structure and crunch when eaten.

- To find out whether a sunny root crop is ripe or not, you should carefully study its dimensions. The ripe crop is about five centimeters wide and protrudes slightly from the topsoil. The fruit is sweet and full of juice. Larger, overripe fruits acquire a bitter taste, hardness and dryness, while small turnips taste amazing. She can also show off a high content of vitamin C, but long-term maintenance is impossible.

How to clean turnips

The correct collection of solar root crops is important in that option if you want to keep turnips for a long time.

- When removing solar roots from the soil, you must act carefully so as not to harm the thin shell. All kinds of cracks and irregularities are an open gate to enter the vegetable crop for harmful microorganisms, as a result, the turnip is teeming with a huge number of parasites and diseases. These fruits are no longer suitable for long-term maintenance. It is worth including them in your diet as early as possible.

- When collecting, it is allowed to pull the solar root crop by the tops with your own hands.If the soil on the ridge is too compacted and moist, it is possible to help yourself with a shovel.

- Turnip fruits pulled from the soil must be dried, especially if there is a week with daily rains. It is recommended to do this in the fresh air, so that direct sunlight would disinfect the fruit as an auxiliary, and the wind would quickly dry it out. But you should not overdo it, because with prolonged exposure to sunlight, the solar root crop will rapidly wither. The whole procedure can be done in no more than two hours. In partial shade, for example, under a roof, the turnip does not lose its elasticity until twenty-four hours.

- Immediately after harvesting, you need to remove the tops, cut them as short as possible with a garden pruner or a pointed knife. The remaining stalk should not be more than one centimeter long.

How to store turnips

The most commonly used method of keeping a solar root vegetable is very similar to storing carrots and a couple of other vegetable crops.

- The recommended room for keeping is a cellar, basement or an insulated box on the loggia with new windows. It is important that the place is constantly ventilated, the temperature indicator reaches from zero degrees to plus five degrees, and the humidity level is no more than ninety percent.

- In the form of a container, it is recommended to use a container made of wood or metal; clean and moistened sand is placed on its bottom, approximately eight to ten centimeters thick. They process all the fruits, put them in layers in a container. Single fruits are fenced off from each other, which prevents harmful microorganisms from moving from an infected vegetable crop to unharmed vegetables. The sand also maintains the elasticity and the amount of juice in the sunny root crop, significantly reducing the moisture release from its skin.

- Before collecting for the content, it is required to sprinkle all the upper cuts of the turnip with chalk, crushed activated carbon or ash. This method allows you to dry the stalk cut and protects it from decay.