Bitter turnips

Hello!!

This spring I planted a good amount of turnips for myself and my wife. Upon harvesting and cooking them (baked with other roots and garlic, they were AWFUL. So bitter that it ruined the entire dish, all of it went to the compost. Upon googling this, a lot of the internet acts as if turnips are inherently bitter. I have bought and eaten tons of them from the store, and have never had something so bitter. They were so bad I ripped up the whole crop and was done with it haha.
Where did I go wrong? I suspect the summer heat had something to do with it. Would I have been better off starting these later in the season, grown into the fall and allowed a freeze or two before harvest?

Thanks for the help!

When you say turnips what type do you mean? Some should only be in the ground 5-7 weeks others can last outside all winter. Stress may cause them to go bitter (lack of water, to much heat etc) Frost will not remove bitterness as all frost can do is sweeten them some by changing some carbohydrate to sugar and carbohydrates are not the cause of the bitterness. Bitterness in brassicas is something only some people can taste but since you like other turnips I'm guessing it isn't an inherent dislike of the vegetables that is the problem.

Interesting! I was hoping a freeze would increase sweetness and decrease bitterness. These were purple top, not sure if there is anything special about them. I suspect watering was my issue; I tried to be very conservative with water and my crops suffered. My celery looked very nice but upon trying it, also very bitter and no good. Next year I’ll step up the watering. This was my first year on new land so lots of learning curves!

Ooh if the celery was bitter then yes it's probably something environmental rather than the turnips themselves. I actually managed very good celery and turnips this year, but we had a horribly wet and cold summer so that probably helped me a lot.

I grew milan purple top turnips this year and they were in the ground for 8 weeks after that they were woody and bolted I didn't try any of the old ones so can't say if they were bitter or not.

At my place in the desert, pretty much any brassica turns bitter if it has insufficient water. Brassicas taste best for me if grown during cooler seasons.