Seven Top Turnips

Seven Top Turnip is the standard amongst lovers of Turnip greens throughout the Southern US, including in the gardens and on the table of Truelove Seeds' co-founder Chris Bolden Newsome's family in the Mississippi Delta. Dating back to the 1830s in Virginia, this variety is an unusual turnip in that it does not grow an edible root, instead focusing its energies on creating lots of delicious leaves. While most turnips are grown for animal forage (roots and leaves), this leafy variety is grown in kitchen gardens exclusively for the human dinner table. If eaten raw in salads, harvest at 6-9 inches. We harvest them for cooking greens, which you can do even when they are two feet tall. Slow Food International has designated Seven Top Turnips as a culturally important and endangered variety in their Ark of Taste. They explain: "In southern cookery it was particularly favored in wilted salads, in which hot bacon grease and salt are poured over the fresh, washed greens." In our house, we simpl