Bog Myrtle & Peat

I’ve been looking forward to growing turnips for almost a decade. Fuelled by old tales of  partridges and hares in the turnip fields, I swore that one day I would try and recreate some of that magic for myself.

Old and faithful readers of this blog will remember my dabbling with stubble turnips in 2012 and 2013. This work went off half-cock because these were the days before I’d been swallowed into the world of hill cattle. My “game crops” were sown to please the birds, and while they were good, I’m geared to a different line these days. I’m driving towards a system which powers beef and birds alike, and it’s a good time to revisit that old ambition.

Fifty years ago, turnips were a cornerstone of agriculture in Galloway. Every farm grew them as fodder for livestock, and there’s no doubt that turnips make good feeding. But from what I’ve heard, turnips themselves are fairly useless to wildlife. Rabbits and deer will nibble them and perhaps a pigeon will pull at the young leaves, but the true value of turnips seems to come from the groundswell of nutrients (and weeds) which accompanies the crop.

I’m still convinced that nature thrives on change and dynamism, and turnips seem to represent variety and activity in a landscape, particularly in modern Galloway where fields now lie in grass for decades and there’s hardly a piece of ploughed land for miles. We moved away from turnips because silage is easier and cheaper, and now we all follow the same dull thread of uniformity. It’s no surprise that wildlife has foundered.

Back in the old days, the best results seemed to come from growing turnips in “drills”; long, heaped rows of soil with seeds placed along the top. Depending where you come from in Galloway, you call these “drales” or “dreels”, (and that’s hardly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the pronunciation of turnip vocabulary). The drills line up and make sheltered passageways where birds can lurk, and the soil’s soon colonised by seedy weeds which the finches love. I’m told that a good turnip field does more for wildlife than any other crop, and I can’t wait to see that for myself.

In 2013, my stubble turnips were broadcast in a random scatter, and they came up in patchy clumps because I hardly knew what I was doing. But now I’ve picked up a ridger plough and a seed barrow to plant the turnips in drills. I had a pretty clear idea of how to do this work, but it’s not easy to translate theory into practice. Turnip seeds are very small, and they are buried underground as the tractor moves along. Short of digging up each seed to check it has been sown, there’s very little evidence that you’re doing it right. In the interests of time and my own sanity, I was forced to trust the web of belts and wheels to do their job. It was a leap of faith, made with fingers crossed.

Sowing was slow work, and it was hard to balance the pressure of driving even lines with checking the barrow and praying that everything was running smoothly. It’s hard to tell how I did, but a fortnight will reveal all when the first turnips come through. Perhaps there will be a drill without any turnip seedlings, or maybe some other problem will reveal itself in retrospect. I have plenty of seed left over to plug any gaps, but at least now I know how the job should be done for future years.

And it was a cool, easy feeling to lie in bed during that night and listen to rain soaking into the new crop below the house. There’s no going back now.