Picking turnips

We have lived in our house for five years now and talked several times about going out to visit Schnepf farms.  We finally went to check it out. Our family days together where we head off on these spontaneous trips places are always my favorite days.  Most of the rides and craft vendors and activities happen on the first Saturday of the month which had already passed but we went instead to try out the farms "u pick" garden.  Each of the kids got a basket and we headed out to the garden to pick what veggies were currently available.  All different varieties of lettuce, spinach, radishes, green tomatoes, peas and turnips.  Deke grabbed a shovel and showed the kids how to harvest the different kinds of vegetables.  The kids were in heaven.  They got right down in the dirt and started pulling up the biggest veggies they could find.  Hunter and Avery went carefully down the rows searching for the one that they though would be the biggest and then comparing them with each other.  Imagine their surprise when Em pulled out the largest one of them all a turnip that was half the size of her head!! We all laughed when she pulled with all of her might and launched herself backwards on her behind trying to get it out.  Dad came to her rescue and she got wide eyed as soon as she saw it yelling "I got the biggest one!! Hunter, Ave look at mine!!"

The kids would gather five or six of one kind and then run up a ways to a new row and start pulling up the next kind.  It was fun to watch which vegetables they chose to fill their baskets with and to watch them pull them out and how excited they were about all of it.  It was so much fun.  To be outside in the nice weather no one else really around but our little family working together.  Oh how I wish we had room for a garden.  There is just something so amazing about watching seeds go into the ground and so quickly turn into little plants that then grow to produce delicious foods.  It is so neat to watch the growing process and such a sense of accomplishment to feel a part of it.

The kids all filled their baskets and then we headed back to the country store to weigh our goods.  As we loaded them all into bags, the kids talked about trying all the things they had picked.  Everything I could find an easy use for except the beets because I have tried them a couple times and think they are gross to be quite honest.  Thank goodness we only got a couple.  However the turnips were a head scratcher for me since I have never had one.

We grabbed up some pecan rolls to eat because you have to get dessert if you eat all your veggies....

Then took Hudson for a train ride since he had been pointing at it all afternoon every time it went by.

So now we have all these turnips because of course the girls thought that they "were pretty" and I have looked up every known turnip recipe on Pinterest that I can find.  Believe me this is not all of them (just the ones lucky enough to make the photo shoot :) :) )  We will be trying them mixed in with potatoes done mashed and loaded with chives and bacon and then shredded hashbrown style with cheese in another recipe as well.  We'll see how it goes :)