If you have ever been served haggis on Robbie Burns day or any other, you likely ate mashed “neeps and tatties” along with it. Neeps, also known as tumshies or swedes, are known to North Americans by the funky name of rutabaga. Tatties, of course, are potatoes.
Rutabagas are winter root vegetables. Typically planted after summer solstice, this wild cabbage and turnip cross, painted eggplant purple and jersey cream, ranks among my favourite brassicas. The living room of our old saltbox home was in fact painted rutabaga cream.
Thought to have originated in Sweden, rutabagas were introduced to Canada during the 1800s by way of England. They settled in nicely, being winter-sport-loving veg and all. Actual Swedes by the way, call rutabaga kålrots (sounds like “cool-roots”), complicating things still further.
We are just now planting this year’s second crop of rutabaga, starting them in semi-shade located soil blocks to give them a bit of a head start, and to optimize available raised bed space. Typically and frustratingly, just over half of seeds germinate, which then leaves half of direct-sown bed space empty. By mid-October, we should have a second and much larger crop of rutabagas ready for storage, roasting and braising.
We direct-sowed our first crop of rutabaga mid-January, into small lidded containers nestled deep into a winter mulch of hemp and leaves. By March, wee neeps were reaching up to the sun, and shortly thereafter seedlings were transplanted directly into the soil with which they were already acquainted.
The fluctuating heat-rain-heat-cold-rain stretch that governed ecosystem services in our vegetable garden these past months immune-stressed our beautiful rutabaga substantially, apparently, inviting juicy green cabbage aphids in by the thousands. To cull the pests, we trimmed the tops and relegated the protein-rich off-cuts to various composting systems. Nothing goes to waste in an urban permaculture garden.
A few days later we harvested the roots, cutting through very close to the tips and twisting them out to minimize disturbance of soil biology. The roots were unable to reach their full size potential sadly, but next year should we winter-sow once again, we will cover our rutabaga with very lightweight fleece to keep aphids and cabbage moths at bay.
I cubed and froze most of the rutabaga, as I will many of our root vegetables. By November, when I have enough chopped and frozen garden vegetables and herbs in all colours of the rainbow, plus many shapes and sizes of dried home-grown beans, I will make a spectacularly huge pot of tomato and bison bone broth-based minestrone for pressure canning.
The shelf-stable quart jars of soup concentrate, with instructions for reconstituting each with water or broth and adding barley or buckwheat on re-heating, will be shared with our grown children who have left our nest.
Pressure canning, I have found, is excellent medicine for empty-nesters unable or unwilling to return to cooking for just one or two, and whose freezer space is limited.
Slowly, I am making progress. Last evening I baked a rustic rutabaga gratin for two, infused with finely grated pecorino, garlic, fresh thyme, veggie stock, sea salt, Aleppo pepper and some lovely Domenica Fiore olive oil from Umbria. An ad-hoc hot mess, but delicious.
Low in calories, rutabagas are loaded with beneficial flavonoids, fibre and protein. They provide an excellent source of vitamins C and E, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and selenium.
Interestingly, rutabaga ranks very high among Candida-fighting foods and is considered one of the most potent anti-fungal foods in the world. For highest phyto-nutrient potential, look for heritage varieties of seed.
Laura Marie Neubert is a West Vancouver-based urban permaculture designer. Follow her on Instagram @upfrontandbeautiful, learn more about permaculture by visiting her Upfront & Beautiful website or email your questions to her here.
For a taste of permaculture, watch the video below:
