Seeds, Root Veggies

PURPLE TOP WHITE GLOBE TURNIP: Everyone would benefit from eating more brassicas and growing a humble row of turnips is a surprisingly easy, satisfying crop to help you do just that! This beautiful heirloom, dating to 1890, is smooth with pure white crispy flesh except the part that grows above the ground, which becomes a beautiful bright purple. Easy to grow, mild when cooked. Turnips are high in the antioxidant lutein, an important protector of eye health, as well as Vitamin C. We toss a turnip into all kinds of dishes!

CYLINDRA BEET: This is a long bright red beet that is sweet, stores very well, grows abundantly, produces nice beet greens, and is terrific eaten raw, cooked, or pickled. It is an heirloom variety from Denmark believed to have been developed in the 1880s and introduced in North American around 1900. Easy to grow from seed. It has been our family's beet variety for over a dozen years, we don't grow any other!

Funny Story: Beets are biennials, meaning that in northern climates, you have to grow them, then dig them, over-winter them in the fridge or cold cellar, and then replant them again the following spring in order for them to go to seed in their second year of growth. (The same is true of turnips but we overwinter those right in the garden.) We grow a crop of beets for seed every few years which means we over-winter a whole drawer full of our nicest ones in our fridge those years and then plant out the ones that are still viable after a winter of storage. A couple of years ago, our son was getting something out of the fridge and he turned to me and asked, "Is there a reason we always have a drawer of mouldy beets in our fridge?" LOL! Ooops!