In the fall of 2014, after planting all the trees, shrubs, vines, and bushes there was quite a bit of bare soil to cover. I went to the Co-Op over in Mertens and noticed a big bag of turnip seed on the shelf, and if memory serves, it was about $8. Brought it home and handbroadcast the seeds onto the open dirt, no muss, no fuss, no raking, no watering, a couple of weeks later turnips popping up everywhere. Great ground cover, great soil penetration, and lots of bio-mass to pile up in the swales in the spring, or so I assumed. Fast foward a few months (and a mild winter) and the biennial nature of the turnip had other plans.
When I think Turnips, I think Russian peasants, and finally growing Turnips made me better understand why the Turnip was so important to so many. The greens can be plucked and eaten early, though they do taste like turnips... :-) The root crop is winter hardy, the mild Texas winter never even touched the greens, they grew taller and fuller until beginning to bloom in early February. I had no idea what was to follow, bee heaven. Today was the 21st of February, and walking through the Turnip flowers today I was surrounded by 1000's of bees happily working and hopefully they'll remember where we're at when the fruit trees start blooming.
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