OxGrow Oxford's Edible Community Garden

Turnips (Brassica rapa var. rapa)

Although admittedly tiny by any objective standards, in our eyes at least the OxGrow harvest is abundant!  The produce coming to maturity continues to grow in quantity and variety every week, each crop greeted with close attention and anticipation by all of us on hand.  Last Sunday we picked a bountiful crop of two varieties of turnip that were taken home by volunteers.  The excitable state brought on in us by the small quantities of this humble vegetable that have sprung up from our beds lead us to reflect on the transformative power of growing for yourself.  The turnip, transported by the truckload, relegated to animal fodder, disliked by children, and given short shrift on supermarket shelves, becomes an object of fascination as we observe it closely and discuss the deep purple colouration of its skin and the size and shape of each individual root.  As with the radish harvest of a few weeks ago, even the leaves do not escape our attentions as we discuss the merits of turnip-leaf soup.  A quick visit to the Wikipedia page on turnips (which is truly fascinating, take a look) reveals that indeed turnip greens are a common side dish in the southeastern United States, resembling mustard greens in flavour.  We also learn that turnips are purple only in those parts that have been hit by sunlight during their growth period and that the 7th Century Greek poet Sappho called one of her lovers ‘Turnip’, substantiating the European origins of the vegetable.  Agricultural knowledge for the masses.

To prove that we’re no Luddites we also started tweeting this week.  We’re going to use twitter to complement our blog, emails and old-fashioned word of mouth to let people know what’s going on at the upcoming work parties, report back on news and link to things that we like.  Follow OxGrow: http://twitter.com/#!/OxGrow

Julian