How To Grow Turnip From Seed

Turnips are very versatile vegetable plants. They can be harvested when mature or young, cooked or eaten raw and the young tops can be used like spring greens. Just some of the ways that they can be prepared include mashing, roasting, pickling and boiling, but their mild yet intriguing flavour lends itself to countless more uses.

These brassica plants are quick to mature and easy to grow, spending much less time in the ground than other brassicas. Therefore, turnip seeds and turnip plants are ideal for those looking for a quick harvest for their vegetable garden.

In this D.T. Brown guide, we cover everything you need to know about how to grow turnips from seed. This includes advice for each stage of the growing process for growing early varieties, maincrop varieties and turnip tops.

Turnips will grow best in a sunny spot with moist but well-drained soil. Before you sow your seeds, ensure the area is free of weeds and the soil is raked to a crumbly consistency.

Add garden compost or well-rotted manure to the soil to provide your turnips with beneficial nutrients. This should ideally be done in the autumn before sowing to give the ground time to settle.

When to Sow Turnips

When you sow your turnips will depend on what you intend to grow.

For early turnips, sow Milan Purple Top seeds under garden cloches in February and other varieties from March to July. Generally, it is best to wait until all risk of frost has passed, as turnips are hardy but can’t withstand extended cold temperatures.

For maincrop turnips, sow from July to mid-August.

For specifically growing turnips for their leafy greens, known as tops, sow in August or September.

How to Sow Turnips

All varieties of turnip are best sown directly in their final position outdoors. If the soil is dry, it should be first watered.

Seeds should be sown a half-inch (13mm) deep and gradually thinned out, though they vary in spacing depending on what you’re growing.

Early turnips should be sown in rows 9in (23cm) apart.

Maincrop turnips should be sown in rows 12in (30cm) apart. 

Turnips for turnip tops should be sown in rows 3in (7.5cm) apart.

When to Plant Turnips

Turnip plug plants are best planted at similar times to when they are sown. Early varieties should be planted between March and June, while maincrop varieties should be planted between July and mid-August.

How to Plant Turnips

Though commonly grown from seed, turnips can be grown from turnip plants for easy growing. Much of the same advice follows for growing turnip seeds to turnip plants. Plant them in rows 12in (30cm) apart, ensuring the hole is deep enough to accommodate the plant and is watered before planting.

Watering

You should water your turnips during dry weather, or the roots will become small and woody. Regular watering will also prevent bolting, which can impact root growth.

Weeding

You should regularly weed the area around your turnips, as this prevents them from competing for resources. Weeding is best done by hand for turnips to ensure any tools don’t damage the tops.

When to Harvest Turnips

Turnips generally take six to ten weeks to grow from when they are first sown. When you harvest your turnips depends on the variety you have grown.

Turnip tops should be harvested in March and April.

For early turnips, pull them when they’re the size of a golf ball for eating raw or the size of a tennis ball for cooking from May to September.

Maincrop turnips should be lifted from mid-October onwards, when they’re the size of a golf ball.

How to Harvest Turnips

It's best to harvest turnips when they are small, around the size of a golf ball, as this is when their flavour will be at its best. If left to grow larger than a tennis ball, they will develop a bitter taste and become woody, so take care to avoid this.

Turnip tops will function as a cut-and-come-again crop, so make continual cuts for further harvests.

Turnips are hardy vegetables that grow with little to no fuss once established. However, they are known to face one or two problems on occasion. To prevent or resolve these, we’ve covered the most common turnip problems and their solutions below:

Slugs and snails – Turnips can be attacked by slugs and snails. If this becomes an issue, snail and slug control products such as nematodes are an effective solution. However, using a deterrent product is far more effective in preventing them from attacking in the first place.

Cabbage root fly – Cabbage root fly is a pest that can affect turnips and several other brassica plants. It lays eggs on turnip roots, after which larvae feed on the roots and destroy them. Cabbage root flies can be prevented by using garden netting and practising crop rotation.

Clubroot – Clubroot is a disease that causes turnips to form severely distorted and swollen roots, which leads to poor nutrient and water absorption and poor growth.

The best way to deal with clubroot is to use preventative measures, such as buying disease-resistant vegetable seeds, growing seeds from trusted providers, and practising good garden hygiene. For more information on clubroot, read our guide on how to prevent clubroot disease.

Powdery mildew - Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that appears as a white powdery growth on turnip plant foliage. Though rarely fatal, it can affect the yield and flavour of your turnips in more serious cases.

You should remove any affected foliage as soon as possible. For more information on treatments, including various remedies you can create at home and prevention methods, read our blog on the best powdery mildew treatment.

Flea beetles: Flea beetles will feed on the foliage of turnip plants, leaving small holes in leaves. They can be tolerated on mature plants, though they can stunt the growth of seedlings.

Two useful methods are to use garden netting to keep them out or to grow mustard seeds (found under our green manure seeds) as a companion plant to attract them away from your turnips.

Now that you’ve read our complete guide on how to grow turnips from seed, you can start growing the many fantastic varieties of turnip seeds and plants from D.T. Brown. Our diverse and flavoursome cultivars are explicitly chosen for their quality, making ours the ideal choice for reliable growth.

To learn how to grow many other fruit seeds and vegetable seed varieties, you can discover our many other detailed growing guides and helpful articles for harvests throughout the year on our garden blog. You can also browse our guide on how to grow brassicas for more general tips and to find further specified brassica growing guides such as this one.

For more information about our range of fruit plants, vegetable plants, garden accessories, or anything else we have available, get in touch today and we’ll be more than happy to help.