Enormous Turnip/Rutabaga plea/offer (and other Giant Vegetables)

Hello fellow permies.

This year I am going a bit mad with giant vegetables. Rather than going for contests, I'm looking for efficient ways to feed my homesteading family.

One of the most inspiring seeds so far was the idea of a 100lb radish http://www.reimerseeds.com/sakurajima-mammoth-radishes.aspx. They are daikon-type, and I'm hoping more on the sweet side, as it says in the description.

The other most inspiring, was the Eastham Turnip (apparently a turnip cross with rutabaga), originally from Eastham, Mass. It's now sold by just one seed store (according to both google, and the seed store themselves). For those who want proof of the size, here's a youtube video I found:




Turtle Tree Seed is the seed house that is keeping this amazing variety alive. They have some other cool seeds as well, including a couple of open pollinated chinese cabbage I've not seen elsewhere. https://turtletreeseed.org/


So, now the plea.

I was ready to put in my order, and discovered they don't ship to Canada. Most US seed houses do, but even after checking in with them, they won't do it.

So - the offer is, I will buy someone in the US a pack of Eastham Turnip seeds, if they will let me mail my (small) order to them, then mail it to me. I'll obviously pay for the mailing costs as well.

For a few minutes of time, this would mean a lot to me. I'll plan to save and share seed and keep Eastham going up here in the great white north as long as I'm able.

PM me or send me an email at readrobread at gmail.com if you're interested.

Bakercreek and Turtle Tree Seed both sell Superschmelz Kohlrabi as well - seems fairly large.

I ordered this giant Kohlrabi to try this year: http://www.reimerseeds.com/gigante-kohlrabi.aspx

It looks like it's in the same size class as the one you suggested.

I'll be your re-mailer if you haven't already...

Hi Rob,

Have you had luck growing the Eastham Turnip? I'm in the same position you were last year looking for a way to get these seeds in my garden. I live a short distance north of Montréal (zone 4b). Frost free period is about 130-140 days. Do you think it's long enough to get good result? Is it worth the trouble to get the seeds?

Thanks,
Vincent

the eastham turnip looks fairly similar to the gilfeather turnip i used to get in southern vermont. the frost free season there isn’t too much different from yours. get them out early!

Hi Vincent,

Last year my garden struggled with vast amounts of precipitation over long periods on clay soil. I participated in a rutabaga trial, with six other rutabaga varieties, and added Eastham to this trial myself. All of the rutabagas did poorly, with many dying out completely, and none of them really being worth harvesting. The Eastham were the only ones that made it and did halfway decent - but were not giant (due to growing conditions). Some would have been worth eating, but I'm saving them for seed production. I harvested them, and they are currently in a box of sand in my root cellar, starting to put up growth. I plan to plant them out and save seed this season, however, I am close to the bottom of the minimum threshold of plants suggested for a viable population (around 20 plants).

After reading Joseph Lofthouse's book on Landraces, my longer term goal with Eastham will be to integrate it into a grex/landrace. I got a six species rutabaga grex from Experimental Farm Network this year, so I'll see what happens. At first I will only be able to harvest every other year (unless I magically have time to both harvest and grow out Eastham this year...unlikely), then once I have savable roots from the best performing of that existing grex, and Eastham, I may lump them together into a landrace. Time will tell.

I don't think length of season would be a limited factor for you, but I could be wrong.

As to the trouble of getting the seeds: someone very kind, here on permies, helped me out, and mailed the seeds to me. It was a bit of a hassle (and kind of funny - because the person didn't have paypal, I was going to send cash, but only had coins in US currency, which was going to cost more to mail than the amount I was sending! I had a family member with some paper dollars, so was able to send that in the end.) but I'm happy to be toying around with the seeds.

At the end of the day, the kind funds we put into our growing passion projects can be looked at as wasteful if the experiment doesn't work out, or really pretty small investment if they get you excited and have good results. I tend to often go for it, even if it turns out a rat ends up eating all my hardy palmetto seedlings immediately after germination (true recent story that's still sort of stinging.)

By the way - though I didn't grow gilfeather in the trial I was in, others did, and I remember being surprised that it was rated by far the worst tasting of the ones trialed. That could of course come down to many factors, including strain of seed being grown, but because it was across Canada, and many different soils and growing conditions, I would be cautious before growing that one as your only rutabaga variety. There may be very specific ways to grow it (or climates more suited for it) for it to be great, or sometimes this comes down to taste preference.

As to starting rutabagas/turnips early and transplanting - I did not have success with that last season, but have read in some places that it can be okay, if you are very careful during transplanting not to disturb the root.

A little update, because I just got an apple on this post:

I can confirm that planting out turnips in pots and transplanting can work, at least some that I transplanted developed well.

I planted a lot of Eastham Turnip second generation that I'd saved, and it's developing OK, though not getting huge like I would hope. I've had another year of very high precipitation over the summer, which is not historically the average, but has been for the past three years in a row.

This year Tokyo Market was by far my best producing turnip. Seed was from Quail Seed, who I highly suggest as a seed supplier. https://www.quailseeds.com/store/p129/Tokyo_Market_Turnip.html

Overall, turnip and rutabaga have not performed well enough here for me to consider them as a staple carbohydrate crop, but I'll keep trying a bit longer, and see if anything comes up that works for that purpose.

I just bought some Gilfeather turnip seeds. Would like to hear from others who grew them about their yields, disease issues, and taste opinions. Thanks