Turnip-up!

Turnip-up!

Running a seasonal veg box system is like running a giant social research experiment. While everyone has their own preferences, we’ve slowly learnt some general patterns around what people like, and what they don’t like. What’s interesting is the veggies that people absolutely love… but have a limited tolerance for.

In the winter of 2015, we learnt this lesson the hard way. We were still in the experimenting stage of our cropping, and discovered that, while our carrots were floundering and forking, and our beetroots were rotting (we had a flood that year), the turnips we planted were jumping out of the ground, just asking to be harvested. When we added turnips to the box, we got awesome feedback such as “we loved the turnips this week! It’s so lovely getting vegetables that match the season we’re in, and the turnip gave us a warm wintery feel”. So, we thought “Great, people love Turnips”.

So off we went and sowed a whole area of turnips for the winter ahead. But within a few weeks, we started noticing a lot of customers had begun to exclude turnips from their box, and we started to receive feedback that our boxes were a bit too turnip-y.

We’ve learnt so much since then, and have put substantial work into curating our boxes so that there is a good mix of conventional and unconventional veg. We still want to push people out of their comfort zones and honour the veggies that grow well organically in the Illawarra, within each season. But we also know that food is a very personal thing, and having a balance is important!

This week we’re celebrating the Turnip and the learning curves that make our boxes better.
Enjoy this cool season hero!
Cal Champagne

In your box:

What’s that in my box: Turnips are a great source of vitamin C, helping,  to boost your immune system as we head into winter. They can be eaten raw (in a salad), pickled, boiled, grilled, or sautéed. Although they can taste a little bitter raw, cooking turnips with seasoning or coupling them with some garlic is a great idea as this root veg absorbs flavour very well! For more information on how to store & cook any of our vegetables, visit: https://draxe.com/ and type in the veggie you’re looking for.

You can find all of our recipes here!