When to Plant Turnips
Planting Window - Direct sow
- Direct sow (spring)
- A couple of weeks before last frost
- Direct sow (fall)
- 6-8 weeks before first fall frost
| USDA Zone | Typical Window |
|---|---|
| Zone 5 and colder | April, plus July for a fall crop |
| Zone 6-7 | Late March-April, plus August |
| Zone 8 and south | Fall-through-winter crop |
Turnips are a fast-maturing, genuinely frost-tolerant brassica root crop, grown both for the root itself and for the edible greens, which changes some of the usual timing logic compared to root crops grown purely for the root.
Direct Sowing, Spring or Fall
Turnip seed is direct-sown, tolerating a light frost as seedlings, and can go in the ground a couple of weeks before your last frost date for a spring crop. A second sowing roughly six to eight weeks before your first fall frost date sets up a fall harvest, which many gardeners consider the better of the two windows.
Why the Fall Crop Usually Tastes Better
Similar to carrots, turnips sweeten measurably after exposure to cool fall temperatures, as the plant converts some stored starch to sugar - a spring-grown turnip maturing into rising summer heat tends to taste sharper and more bitter than a fall-grown one maturing into cooling weather, which is the practical reason many experienced gardeners treat turnips primarily as a fall crop rather than splitting effort evenly between both windows.
Hakurei and Other Salad Turnips Mature Even Faster
Hakurei-type salad turnips are a distinct category bred for speed and mildness - often ready in 35-40 days, sweet enough to eat raw, and considerably faster than standard purple-top storage turnips, which run closer to 50-60 days and are bred more for size and storage than for a quick, mild harvest.
Growing for Greens vs. Growing for Roots
Turnip greens can be harvested young without pulling the whole plant, and some varieties are bred and marketed specifically for greens production rather than root size - if greens are the main goal, closer spacing and more frequent cutting makes more sense than the wider spacing a root-focused planting would use.
Storage Turnips Keep for Months
Storage turnips keep for two to three months in a cold, humid spot like a root cellar or refrigerator crisper drawer once tops are trimmed close to the crown - considerably longer than the few weeks a fresh-pulled salad turnip holds, which is part of why the fall crop, timed for a post-frost harvest, does double duty as both eating and winter storage.
Zone boundaries follow the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (2023 revision); frost windows reflect NOAA/NCEI climate normals. Both are typical historical ranges, reviewed annually - not a forecast or a guarantee for any single year. See Methodology & Sources.
Frequently Asked Questions
If I really want turnips through summer, is there anything that reduces the bitterness besides just switching to a fall planting?
Harvesting smaller and younger helps - bitterness tends to build the longer a turnip sits in the ground under heat stress, so pulling roots at a smaller size than you would in a cooler season limits how much sharpness develops. A fast Hakurei-type variety is also a better bet for a summer planting than a standard storage turnip, since it can reach a harvestable size before the worst of the heat has as much time to affect flavor.
Can I harvest turnip greens without ruining the root?
Yes, in moderation - taking a few outer leaves per plant as the root develops doesn't meaningfully hurt root growth, though stripping a plant heavily for greens does reduce the energy available to size up the root, so it's a genuine tradeoff rather than a free harvest.
Since Hakurei matures so fast, can I succession-sow it every few weeks through the season the way I would fast greens?
In the cooler parts of spring and fall, yes - its 35-40 day maturity makes repeated sowings practical the same way it would for radishes or lettuce. Through the hottest weeks of summer it's better to pause, since even a fast-maturing turnip develops the same sharper, more bitter edge in heat that slower storage types do, so the succession window is really spring-into-early-summer and again late-summer-into-fall rather than truly year-round.