Plant · P-187

Rutabaga

Brassica napus

Rutabaga is a slow-growing root vegetable - a natural cross between cabbage and turnip - that takes 90 to 120 days to size a root, with edible leaves and young flowering shoots, cooked like broccoli, along the way. It's also an excellent green manure: its deep taproot drills through and loosens heavy, compacted soil, and left in the ground rather than harvested, the minerals it pulls up stay behind instead of leaving with the root. It needs steady moisture, about an inch of water a week, or the root turns woody and bitter, and it must finish growing before summer heat arrives. It's the same species as canola and forage rape, so if you ever want to save its seed, grow only one crop of that species at a time to avoid cross-pollination.