VegetablerootStraightforward

Turnip

Brassica rapa

A root that grows fast enough to be a catch crop — six to eight weeks from sowing — and is worth eating only when young. The tops are a decent spring green in their own right, which most people never discover. It is a brassica, so it belongs in the brassica rotation rather than with the carrots.

Position: Full sun or Partial shade
Water: moderate demand
Drainage: Free-draining, Moisture-retentive
Grows to: 30–40 cm × 20 cm
Hardiness: H4
Harvest: May to October
Difficulty: Straightforward

August

Sow outdoors · Harvest

Turnip’s year

Resolved for United Kingdom (general). Every window is stored against a climate event rather than a date, so a late frost pocket runs later than the band shows. What else August calls for.

Activity	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O	N	D
Sow outdoors			March.	April.	May.	June.	July.	August.
Harvest					May.	June.	July.	August.	September.	October.

Timing that travels

The band above resolves this plant's windows into months for one region. These are the windows themselves, stored against a climate event rather than a date — which is the form that survives being carried to a colder garden, a frost pocket, or next year.

Conditions it needs

Light: Full sun, Partial shade
Frost: Hardy
Hardiness rating: H4 (RHS)
Grows best at: 10–20 °C
Germinates at: 5–25 °C
Soil: Loam, Sandy
Soil pH: 6–7.5
Drainage: Free-draining, Moisture-retentive
Water needs: moderate
Drought: poor tolerance
Waterlogging: moderate tolerance
Heat: poor tolerance
Wind and exposure: good tolerance

Where these figures come from

LightSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — position

Checked 2026-08-13

FrostSourced guidancehigh confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — hardiness

Checked 2026-08-13

Hardiness ratingSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: RHS hardiness ratings

Checked 2026-08-13

Grows best atSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — temperature

Checked 2026-08-13

Germinates atSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Seed germination temperatures

Checked 2026-08-13

SoilSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — soil

Checked 2026-08-13

Soil pHSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Plant Finder — Missouri Botanical Garden: Brassica rapa — culture

Checked 2026-08-13

DrainageSourced guidancemoderate confidence

Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — soil

Checked 2026-08-13

Water needsHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

DroughtHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

Dry conditions make the root woody and hot-tasting.

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

WaterloggingHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

HeatHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

Wind and exposureHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

On your soil

Computed by comparing this plant's recorded requirements against each soil's recorded characteristics. A recorded horticultural fact overrides the comparison where GrowingHQ holds one.

Soil	Verdict	Why
Heavy clay	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on heavy clay, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.
Sandy	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on sandy, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure.
Chalky and alkaline	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on chalky and alkaline, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure.
Loam	Prefers this soil	Loam suits Turnip as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. Loam is among the soils it is recorded as suiting. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering.
Silty	Prefers this soil	Silty suits Turnip as it stands: The pH suits it: it wants 6 to 7.5, and this soil is in that range. The free drainage is exactly what it wants. The soil holds moisture, which saves a great deal of watering.
Peaty and acid	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on peaty and acid, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.
Shallow over rock	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on shallow over rock, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It has little drought tolerance and this soil dries out fast — it will check and bolt in the first dry spell without watering.Water and mulch will carry it through. On this soil the watering is not optional in a dry spell, which is the difference between a crop and a failure.
Made ground and urban soil	Works, with one condition	Turnip will crop on made ground and urban soil, but one thing has to be dealt with first. It needs ground that drains, and this soil holds water. A plant that stays in the ground through winter with its roots in cold, saturated soil rots — which is what kills most of what fails on heavy ground, rather than the cold.Improve the drainage before planting — a raised bed, or bulky organic matter worked in over several seasons. Do not add sand to clay in small quantities; it makes the problem worse.

Not sure which you have? Four hand tests will settle it.

Space and spacing

Mature height: 30–40 cm
Mature spread: 20 cm
Rooting depth: 30 cm
Spacing: 15–20 cm apart

Where these figures come from

Mature heightHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Mature spreadHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Rooting depthHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
SpacingSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — spacing
Checked 2026-08-13

Measured centre to centre. Plants set closer than this compete for light and water long before they look crowded, and the crowding cannot be undone once they are in.

In a container

Minimum volume: 10 litres or more
Minimum depth: 25 cm

Where the container figures come from

Minimum volumeHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13
Minimum depthHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence: No external citation — see the evidence type above.
Checked 2026-08-13

Choose a deep pot and an early variety, and pull the roots small. Turnips in containers go woody if left to size up.

Where and how you can grow it

Each way of growing is assessed separately, and “not assessed” is a real answer rather than a gap we have filled in with a guess.

Method	Suitability	What it needs
Open ground	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Traditional dug bed	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Raised bed	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13
Greenhouse	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board — AHDB: Root crops under protection Checked 2026-08-13
Polytunnel	Well suited source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board — AHDB: Root crops under protection Checked 2026-08-13
Container	Workable source Sourced guidancemoderate confidence Royal Horticultural Society: Growing method suitability Checked 2026-08-13	25 cm deep
Hydroponics	Workable source GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence Fast, shallow and surface-swelling like beetroot, which puts it on the right side of the line the carrot is on the wrong side of. GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ Checked 2026-08-13

Growing it

SowingSow directly and thin to 15 cm rather than transplanting. Like most roots, turnips forked or checked by transplanting never recover their shape.
HarvestingPull small and often rather than waiting. A golf-ball turnip is sweet; a tennis-ball one is woody, and the change happens over about a fortnight.
WateringTurnips must not check. Keep the soil evenly moist and they will be ready in six to ten weeks; let them dry and then water heavily and the roots go woody and split. This is a crop where watering matters more than feeding.
FeedingNo additional feeding on ground manured for a previous crop. Fresh manure or a nitrogen feed produces a large top and a small root, which is the usual reason a turnip bed disappoints.

Where this guidance comes from

SowingSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — care
Checked 2026-08-13
HarvestingSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — care
Checked 2026-08-13
WateringSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnips — cultivation
Checked 2026-08-13
FeedingSourced guidancemoderate confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnips — cultivation
Checked 2026-08-13

Is it worth putting under cover?

Whether it will grow there is on the methods table above. This is whether the space is well spent, which is a different question and usually the one being asked.

Structure	What protection is worth	What decides it
Greenhouse	Extends the season source GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file. GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ Checked 2026-08-13	Speed. A turnip is fast enough that an early protected sowing is genuinely worth the bench it uses, unlike the other roots here.
Polytunnel	Extends the season source GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence What protection is worth for this crop, judged against the same standard as every other record in this file. GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ Checked 2026-08-13	Speed, and cheap ground to do it in.

Growing it without soil

Nearly anything can be grown in a soilless system by somebody with enough equipment. The useful question is whether it is worth it, in which technique, and what goes wrong.

Works with conditions

Succeeds when the conditions listed here are met and fails when they are not. The conditions are the answer, not a caveat.

source

GrowingHQ editorial positionmoderate confidence

Fast, shallow and surface-swelling like beetroot, which puts it on the right side of the line the carrot is on the wrong side of.

GrowingHQ editorial synthesis — GrowingHQ

Checked 2026-08-13

Techniques that suit it

Ebb and flowA bed of inert medium floods and drains on a timer. The medium holds moisture between floods, which makes it far more tolerant of interruption than NFT.
Drip-fed mediumSolution is dripped into an inert medium around each plant. The most forgiving technique and the one that suits large, long-season, heavy crops.

source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

Root space: Around 20 cm of medium.
pH band: 5.5–6.5

Where these figures come from

Root spaceHorticultural consensusmoderate confidence

No external citation — see the evidence type above.

Checked 2026-08-13

pH bandSourced guidancehigh confidence

Outside roughly this band, individual nutrients become unavailable even when they are present in the solution — which is why a crop can starve in a full reservoir.

Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic solution management — pH

Checked 2026-08-13

What actually goes wrong

pH drift. The solution moves as the plants take nutrients up, and by the time deficiency symptoms appear on the leaves the cause is several weeks old.
source
Sourced guidancehigh confidence
- Purdue Extension — Purdue University: Hydroponic solution management — pH
Checked 2026-08-13

No nutrient recipes here

GrowingHQ records pH bands, which are measurable properties of nutrient availability, and deliberately records no EC or PPM targets and no mixing instructions. Published targets vary by cultivar, growth stage, water source and technique, and the figures that apply to your system are on the product you bought.

Harvesting

When it is readyPull at golf-ball to tennis-ball size. Larger turnips turn woody and strongly flavoured, which is where the vegetable's poor reputation comes from.
How to pick itEase the root up with a fork if the ground is firm, then pull by the leaf bases rather than the leaves themselves, which tear off. Twist the tops off to within about 2 cm of the crown for storage — leaves left on go on drawing moisture out of the root. The tops are worth eating as greens.

Where the harvest guidance comes from

When it is readySourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — harvesting
Checked 2026-08-13
How to pick itSourced guidancehigh confidence: Royal Horticultural Society: Turnip — harvesting
Checked 2026-08-13

What goes wrong

Problem	How often	Notes
Cabbage root fly	common source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13	The maggots tunnel the root itself, so the damage is found when the crop is lifted.
Boron deficiency	occasional source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13	Brown heart: internal browning on a root whose skin and leaves look normal.
Flea beetle	common source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13
Clubroot	common source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13	It is a brassica, and rotating it with the root crops is the commonest way clubroot spreads through a plot.
Slugs and snails	common source Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence No external citation — see the evidence type above. Checked 2026-08-13

Sources for this page

Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board · GrowingHQ editorial synthesis · Plant Finder · Royal Horticultural Society

Each figure on this page carries its own citation, under the “where these figures come from” note in its section. Record last reviewed 2026-08-14.