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A few weeks ago, we noticed some leaves on the top of a turnip. For a bit of mild amusement, we cut off the top and put it in a pot of water. Roll on to today, and it's about nine inches tall, with roots coming out of the bottom and what looks like flowers at the top...

Turnip growing

Sorry, it's not as sharp a picture as I'd like, but you should be able to get the idea.

Having got this far, I'd like to get it to grow more, but am unsure what to do next. My feeling is that it won't be happy sitting in a bit of water for long, but if I plant it in soil, will it suffer from the sudden lowering of the moisture levels? To wet the soil enough to give it the same moisture as it's getting now means it sitting in soaking soil, which doesn't sound like such a great idea.

Anyone able to advise? I've no expectations of going into business as a turnip producer, I'm just enjoying seeing it grow and want to see how far it will go.

In case it helps, I'm on NW England, and it's currently sitting on an east-facing windowsill that gets a lot of light and sunshine (when we have any). I have a greenhouse if that would make a better environment for it.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

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Now that the flower has formed, the best you can hope for is some production of seed so you can try growing turnips from seed if you want - it won't grow on in soil or in water now I'm afraid.

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    OK, thanks for the reply. As I said, I'm not going into the turnip-growing business, so the chances of me getting it far enough to collect viable seeds, and then get them to grow are less than minimal. I was mainly interested to see if we could get this particular specimen to do anything more, but if it won't grow any more as it is, we'll just keep it until it dies and then move on to the next bit of fun! Thanks again. Jun 16, 2022 at 14:07

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