Last edited on November 02, 2026. View history
White Ball Turnip
A variety of turnip
How to sow white ball turnip: Direct seed outdoors, thin to 10cm when seedlings are 3cm tall
Sun requirement for white ball turnip: Plant in Full Sun
A New Zealand heirloom from Henry Harrington's collection, traced to his grandparents' gardens on Banks Peninsula, where the de Malmanche family were settlers in the early French settlement at Takamatua. Young turnips are good raw and older ones cooked, and the tops make good cooked greens. Fast growing; sow thickly and thin by eating the thinnings as greens.
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White ball turnip facts
Lifespan
Crop cycle
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For white ball turnip, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 60 days at its best temperature, about 1110 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your white ball turnip will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Growing white ball turnips
- Dig the bed and add compost 2 weeks before sowing
- Set or refill beer traps for slugs and snails 1 week after sowing every week
- Thin the seedlings 2 weeks after sowing
- Water regularly 2 weeks after sowing every week
- Weed between the rows 4 weeks after sowing
- Sow another batch 4 weeks after sowing
- Pull roots while they are small and tender at first harvest every week
- Lift the rest of the crop 4 weeks after first harvest
Plant white ball turnips with
dill
Video
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 60 to 340 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Brassica campestris L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Capparales Cruciferae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: -1 °C, rest: -10 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | erect |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | heavy, medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
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