Saving Turnip Seeds

Saving Turnip Seeds is not something I intended to do this year, but we had a happy surprise. Below I will tell you our process for saving turnips seeds. 

We planted turnip seed in the late summer last year, and ended up with a ton of turnips. We got lazy at the end of year, and left a ton of turnips in the ground. 

They were there all winter, and to our surprise, were still in tact this spring when it came time to start prepping our garden.

We could have just left them where they were to bloom. But they were taking up prime tomato real estate, so they had to go.

Ideally you would harvest turnips in the fall, and store them in a cold cellar for the winter. Since our ground didn’t get terribly cold this winter, we lucked out.

So we pulled up all the left over turnips, in the early spring, and tossed them on top of the compost pile. We could have also planted them in a shallow trench.

Turnip Surprise

To our surprise, a couple months later we had a compost pile full of big yellow turnip blooms, and seed pods. 

After the turnip plants bloom, wait for them to turn brown, and dry out. Just be careful not to let them dry out too much. If you wait too long, the seeds will fall to the ground, and you will have baby turnips sprouting all over. Trust me.

After they have dried out, simply pull off the pods, and the seeds will easily come right out. And just like that you are ready to plant. 

We have decided this year we are going to try to save seeds from everything we can. So stay tuned for the next seed saving blog.

I am pretty excited to try seed saving cabbage. The process should be pretty similar to Saving Turnip Seeds. 

Hopefully this gives you some motivation to give seed saving a try for yourself. Keep following along with The Four Acre Farm for Easy Homemade Recipes, Gardening Tips, & Budget Friendly DIY.