Mansfield, Missouri -- Hey, Turnip-head!

I have, for years, endured the row of turnips. I recommended they be considered a good plow-down for our heavy, clay soils, if they even germinated. The ones I had tried tasted like cabbage cores. As long as we had peanut butter and celery, someone else could have the turnips.   Turnips are tasty with new potatoes & onions; pretty with the impatienx.  Just as yummy and nearly as pretty as Bob Sharpe's  Tomatoes-Part 2   It looks like Bob is setting up for some fried green tomatoes.

This year, we had turnips germinate like you wouldn't believe! They pushed their little purple tops right out of the ground. (in the past, the turnips and carrots loved to keep a strong root grasp, leaving me with a handful of tops.) I gave up and cooked some of them.

Then some more of them. We found we really liked turnips, new potatoes, carrots and onions with a little bacon. Potatoes and turnips made 'potato salad'. Turnips can be grated for a pungent slaw. When canned, using the directions for beets, they retain a crispy texture not unlike water chestnuts.

This week, we're going to be nutsy enough to try our first fall garden and plant some more. Growing guides say not to let them get too mature in the fall. I don't think that will be a problem.

Not everyone has a garden plot. Raised beds are a good thing; borders can produce green and food. Salad in a window box and other balcony or patio containers are a city option. I haven't tried turnips in a container, but have done potatoes. This year, we have put the rhubarb starts in a big tub. Smaller containers are supporting tomatillos, tomatoes, zucchini. There are pumpkins in my borders, watermelons and cucumber volunteers in my patio impatiens. I am testing a tomato in a gallon milk jug. And a few pots of very late tomatoes which I can keep close to the house when the weather cools off. Tomatos are so determined. I have some that I forget and with a bit of water, they just come back.

An invigorating facet of being green is growing a food producing plant where you can. Plants are made to serve at all levels, esthetic and temporal.

A year of rain and growing has made the Ozarks a lush, garden spot this season.  We were late getting the tomatoes and other plants into the first garden, but they are vigorous. My friends at Estrada's Mexican Restaurant are glad to know we can grow tomatillos here.  I've never tried a fall garden before, so am eager to get that going.  With my garden blog:  The Legacy Gardens  with the pictures and content on the rest of the site, I am now driven to try new things and keep track of what happens, then write about it.