Turnip question

hello! I have a very beginner, basic question(:

So we had this fairly large/medium turnip sitting in the frig for a long enough time for it to a) sprout leaves on top(maybe an inch long? very tiny, bright green)... and b) grow a wee bit of mold. So I decided to put it in my current experimental garden bed and see what happens. I know nothing about turnips and looked at it similar to a potato in that it would produce more turnips. 2 weeks after planting.. the leaves have grown quite well. Oh and the turnip was white-ish with a purple top!

I put some pictures to show you guys what the plant looks like, about 2 weeks later.

So I had a few questions
1)will planting the turnip itself produce a yield of more turnips? or will it just grow leaves, which I could harvest in a salad or something?
2)when I planted the turnip, I put the entire thing in the ground, with it's leaves above. I think a day or so later a squirrel or something dug right to the turnip, but didn't touch it, just left a hole in the soil. Immediately I wondered if this was feedback from nature telling me "the root needs to be a little above ground!". Or maybe it was just a random animal looking for food. I thought this though because I happen upon a video of someone growing these and when they were done, they were practically above the ground, visible and what not.

Overall this turnip was a fun experience and it's great I was able to get some sort of yield out despite it being on the verge of rotting away in the frig.

It depends on your climate. In warmer climates, turnips will continue to grow, albeit slowly, through the winter and then when the weather heats up, they will bolt, flower and set seed. The root is an energy store for the plant, so when I was pulled out of the ground and put into the refrigerator, that didn't kill it, just put it into hibernation. It's not going to do like a potato and make more tubers underground, but if you keep clipping the tops, it can bush out and form several tops all sharing the same bulbous root.

Here in Georgia, the green tops are probably more popular than the roots. And then there are those that can't decide, so they cook up the diced root up with the greens. From your post, it sounds like you haven't been introduced to turnip greens, but they can be cooked up and used interchangeably with cabbage or broccoli. The only difference is that they don't have a texture that holds up to cooking like the other two; they tend to have the same consistency as spinach does after cooking.

Hey John. Thank you for clearing all that up for me - I feel like I understand turnips a lot more now. I'll definitely be including the leaves in my breakfast tomorrow morning - some raw, some cooked. Try feeding some to my parrot as well. Personally, I'm not too fond of turnips, so hopefully the tops taste good. Also I'm not to far from you(Charlotte, NC). I've noticed we get pretty warm weather until late in the year. It's close to December and today it was in the 70's(last week I believe we broke a record of a low of 20 something from the cold weather that came in).

Thanks for pointing out the leaves cooked texture as well, I'll be sure to prep it to suit my needs. I'm not too fond of that particular texture, but I don't mind it as well. As-long as it's with more solid food like carrots or something.