turnips for square foot gardening....

14 years ago

I currently have both books on square foot gardening; I checked them out from my local library.

There are a number of recommendations for how much of each type of vegetable to plant in each 1' x 1' box.

However Mel (the author of both books on Square foot gardening and the one who came up with the concept of square foot gardening itself) doesn't give a recommendation of how many turnips can be grown in a 1' x 1' square.

The vegetables are divided into three sizes; small, medium, and large. What can be grown in a square and how many plants can be grown in each square depends on the size of the crop.

First off what size as a vegetable can a turnip be considered? I don't think it's a huge crop like broccoli or cabbage. Nor do I think it's a type of crop that

eats up a lot of space because of it's growth pattern (these type of veggies tend to be cucumbers, any kind of melon, any kind of squash, and tomatoes).

I would like to use a 1' x 1' box which is recommended

for vegetables that are root crops. I can make the depth of the box 6", 9", or 12". Unfortunately I don't know what the soil depth should be for growing turnips. If somebody could give me a recommended soil depth for growing turnips, I'd be able to determine what the height of the box should be (6", 9", or 12") which will determine the depth of the box.

I could really use help regarding this. Any advice, suggestions, and or recommendations will be very much appreciated for those who post on this thread! I'm curious as to what a turnip tastes like and I'd like to try growing it.

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Comments (4)

c_penton
14 years ago
If you have the option use the 12". Now, with the 12" you will need more soil mix. The 9" will probably be plenty though.
eaglesgarden
14 years ago
Turnips (large ones) should be planted 4 per SF. Smaller varieties can go 9 per SF. It depends on the size of the turnip you plan to grow. If you are growing purely for GREENS, you could even go with 16, but that might be a bit tight.
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kawaiineko_gardener
Original Author
14 years ago
Well I've never grown turnips before, so I don't know what would constitute as a big turnip and what would constitute as a small turnip. I am assuming how you determine whether a turnip is a big variety or small variety is how big the diameter of the root end of the vegetable itself is (in inches).

In inches with the diameter of the root end of the turnip what is considered a big turnip, what's considered a medium turnip, and what's considered a small turnip; these figures don't have to be exact, just a guesstimate in inches for each size (big, medium, and small) will suffice.

The reason I'm asking for specifics with this is simply because I know that if you overcrowd plants of any kind (whether it be a veggie, an herb, or a flower) this for various reasons stresses out the plant. As a result this makes them more vulnerable to disease and they're more liable to die. This is what I'm trying to avoid.

The variety of turnip I have is called "purple top white globe". The top half of the vegetable is purple; the lower half of the vegetable and root end is white. I don't know if by describing the variety of turnip I have, it helps to clarify whether it will be big, medium, or small. Unfortunately the seed packet doesn't give a guesstimate of how big the diameter of the root end of the vegetable will be (in inches).
susancol
14 years ago
kawaiineko_gardener,

Do you have instructions on your seed packet? They should indicate how far apart the seeds should be spaced in rows, so it would say something like space the seeds 4 inches apart in rows 12 inches apart. To convert those intructions into square foot gardening, you disregard the row spacing and just look at the see spacing figure. 4 inches apart, in a 12" square foot, means that you can get three plants across (12 divided by 4 = 3) So three down and three across would be 9 total plants (3x3=9)

Does that help?