Mystery Vegetable

 

In our last episode, I debated on what the mystery vegetable was growing in my cosmic onion patch, so named for the glow-in-the-dark Saturn 🪐 sculpture I stuck in the ground when the onion sets went in. 

 

Here's the Sitch

I dug a new patch of garden this year and trucked over some compost. Last year, I had chucked some old seeds into the compost pile in an act of "I'll never use you" petulance.

Sometime early summer, I spied something leafy growing among the onions and thought they were radishes. Even though I love radishes, I have determined that I cannot grow them here as my soil is too rich; they grow all leaves and no radish roots. So I yanked out 2 of the things.

Immediately, I realized that they looked like parsnips so I plunged them back into nearby spots in the garden and watered and apologized profusely for the next week.

What are they?

Since then, I've wondered just what these vegetables are. There are 4. Leafy. Something underground. 4 different sizes.  Some purple streaks in the leaves.

Turnips?

Rutabagas? 

Daikon Radishes? (that would explain my seed tossing)

I harvested the onions and I'm sad to say I had a poorly sized crop. Very small. Actually some of them could be "sets" for next year, if they survive the winter. They were crowded out by these 'thing' leaves and leaves from my butternut squash.

TODAY IS THE DAY

Fast forward an UNBELIEVABLE 6 months to mid-November when we've been having a long, late, and warm autumn. It's 55 degrees Fahrenheit as I type. The almanac says today's high should be 41. Snow is in the forecast (again) for the coming week. Oklahoma had snow yesterday. We've yet to have any. But as a general rule, I like to garden when I can feel my fingers so I decided...

TODAY IS THE DAY.

And here our story picks up.

So I head out to the garden. Garden fork in hand for strength. Two dogs for moral support. Also, they'll eat anything.

 

 

Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga

 

OK, digging them up now. I go for the biggest one 1st. I'm really hoping these are rutabagas.

 

I pull it out. It's roundish. It looks like a rutabaga. Still very leafy. But some worms have been having snacks on the root. No worries, they fall off with a good shake.  It's still lighter than I expected and when my trowel hits it, it sounds weirdly like a light tap. 

I dig the 2nd one. Uh oh. This one is tapered. It looks like a parsnip.

Is it possible that all 4 plants are not the same thing?

I dig the 3rd one. It's a hybrid: tapered but with a purple top.

I leave the 4th one in the ground on purpose. If I like these, I want one to overwinter and possibly go to seed so that I can collect the seeds for future gardening.

So here is the motley crew laid out (left to right, 3, 2, and 1):

And close ups:

1.

2.

 

3.

I still do NOT know what these are.

So decide to next conduct a smell test.  What do they smell like?

1st: Ugh. Smells gross. Like dirt. Bad dirt.

2nd one: Smells like Rutabaga.

3rd one: Smells like Parsnip.

Frack. Still no idea what these are.

I decide that I'll clean them up and get them inside to see what they really are. So I proceed to cut off the leafy tops and all those hairy roots.  The dogs are suspiciously not interested in any of this.  Uh-oh. Why?

They eat anything and I mean, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Tap Tap

Now I tap on the biggest one. It's much lighter than I'd expect for a rutabaga of this size.  I keep cutting off the roots. Then I see ....

 

Instead of where the root should be, there's a bunch of small hairy roots. So I trim some more.

 

<cue horror music>

 

Then I see...inside the thing.

 

It's hollow.

 

Empty.

OMG, it's empty. 

 

Something could be in there. I'm picturing a mouse having a munch. So I give it a really hard shake hoping that said mouse will fall out and not run up my coat arm.

No mouse. Nothing shook free. 

Whew. I can breath a little more. But now I'm icked out majorly. 

I proceed to dissect some more, cutting directly into it from multiple sides. All those years of Biology labs weren't for nothing, you know.

I talk to it while I take it apart. "What are you?"  "Why are you like this?" "Eww, that part is worse than the other." "I'm cutting you into small pieces so my dogs can eat you." Would I make a good super villain?

The two other things stand by like "We've got nothing to do with that."

So that 1st biggest one never made it inside my house. It went into the compost pile.  Which is a positive and a negative.

• A positive because it is a large green leafy donation to the compost pile and if there is one thing....OK...two things...my compost pile doesn't much get, it's heat and green things.
• A negative because I sacrificed the prosperity of my onions for this.

So I definitely had a Sally in the pumpkin patch outcry moment.

Resolution...?

I dug up the 4th one. No use letting it grow since I don't really like this outcome.

I brought the 2nd and 3rd one inside for a wash and trim to see if they could be salvaged.

Here they are cleaned up.

And they look and smell much more like parsnips.

I think the mystery vegetables are parsnips.  

They are...I'm sorry to type...on the woody side.  Even the dogs are giving me an "I don't know about this" look for the scraps.😕

The parsnip that was #1 was just a parsnip gone bad. A parsnip that turned the evil. A parsnip that sided with the Emperor.

Yikes, I watch too much Star Wars.

But who's going to eat these? I don't know.  That next adventure will wait for the next episode.