Rutabaga belongs to a biennial plant of the Brassica family and the genus Cabbage. In different regions, this vegetable is given its own name. Recently, it has been considered undeservedly forgotten by gardeners, and even now you won’t see dishes made from this plant on the table. To grow rutabaga, you don’t have to spend a lot of effort, especially since the conditions for growing this vegetable are suitable almost everywhere. The fruits of the plant are used both for livestock feed and for preparing various dishes.

The history of rutabaga

This vegetable began to be eaten in ancient times, although the time of its appearance is still unknown. According to one version, rutabaga was created by crossing cabbage and turnips, and it happened by itself. And with the place of her appearance, not everything is smooth either. Some claim that rutabaga first appeared in Russia, while others say in Europe, closer to the Scandinavian countries. Perhaps that is why one of its names is “Swedish turnip”.

It was really popular in European countries. At first, only poor people used rutabaga as food, and then other classes understood its taste and benefits. In the 17th century, it began to be widely grown in the royal fields of England. Rutabagas with meat are still prepared in this country. This vegetable has gained no less popularity in Germany. The existence of the rutabaga tale in this country speaks volumes.

At the end of the 18th century, this vegetable appeared in Russia, but soon the potato took over the palm, and interest in rutabaga fell sharply. In Russia, this vegetable was consumed raw, stewed, baked and fed to livestock. This plant was also used as a medicine.

Description of the vegetable

This plant tolerates low temperatures and drought well.. In the first year of cultivation, the vegetable develops fruit and leaves, and in the second year, rutabaga blooms and seeds appear. The plant has a tall stem with dissected, almost bare, sometimes whole leaves. Root vegetables, depending on the variety, have different shapes and colors of dense pulp.

The fruit has a sharp, specific taste. The stem can sometimes reach up to 1.5 meters in height. The flowers of the vegetable are usually yellow and grow in the form of a raceme. The fruits have the form of a pod reaching 10 cm in length. The seeds are round, small and dark.

Types and varieties

There are many types and varieties of both food rutabaga and fodder, which was bred by crossing food cabbage with cabbage. These varieties are very productive and do not require much care. We will look at some food grades:

  1. Swedish yellow. It got its name because of the yellow color of the peel and pulp. The fruits are very tasty and quite large (up to 600 g).
  2. "Bright Dream" The ripening period of the fruit ranges from 115 to 125 days. They are oval in shape and medium in size. The pulp is yellow, dense and very sweet. It is used both raw and processed for long-term storage.
  3. Rutabaga Krasnoselskaya. A long-known, early-ripening variety with good taste. The fruits are greenish in color with dense and sugary yellow pulp.
  4. "Ruby." A recently developed variety with a very good taste.

This is just a small list of rutabaga varieties.

Growing stages

Growing and caring for rutabaga includes several stages:

Planting in open ground

With the arrival of warm days Let's start planting seedlings in the ground. This is usually done in late spring or early summer. To make it easier to remove seedlings from the boxes, they must be watered abundantly. Before planting seedlings, you should carefully prepare the soil. If the soil is highly acidic, then lime should be added to it, otherwise rutabaga will grow and store poorly. The soil must allow moisture to pass through well. Fertilizer is applied to the rutabaga area in the fall during deep digging.

Then we prepare holes at a distance of 20 cm along the row and 40-50 cm between the rows. Water each hole well. Before planting, dip the roots of each seedling in a clay solution. Having sprinkled each plant, you should water it again and protect it from direct sunlight.

Plant care

Plant care measures: regular watering, weeding and loosening the soil, fertilizing. One of the conditions for obtaining a tasty and juicy root crop is proper watering. If you water too often, you can end up with a very watery fruit. If watering is scanty, the fruit will end up bitter and tasteless.

In addition, the plant will begin to bloom earlier than expected. Water the rutabaga carefully so as not to wash away the soil covering the root crop. After each watering, be sure to loosen the soil so that the root crop receives a sufficient amount of air.

As soon as a rosette of leaves appears, loosening should be combined with hilling. During loosening, we remove weeds that will interfere with the development of the plant. 14 days after planting the seedlings, the first feeding should be done. To do this, prepare a solution of manure in buckets and, after watering, apply it under each plant. After the root crops begin to appear, we carry out a second fertilizing with mineral fertilizers.

Disease and pest control

Immediately after sowing seedlings treat the leaves with fine wood ash, protecting the plant from the appearance of cruciferous flea beetle. For rutabaga, diseases such as white, felt disease, clubroot, mosaic and other types that are characteristic of all cruciferous vegetables are dangerous. Among the pests, it is worth noting the sprout fly, rapeseed flower beetle, slugs, bedbugs, etc. Insecticides and fungicides are used to combat them. Chemical treatment should be stopped one month before harvest. Planting accompanying plants next to rutabaga - mint, savory, sage, etc. - works well against pests.

Rutabaga belongs to the biennial vegetable crops of the Cabbage genus of the Brassicaceae family. It is included in the human diet and is also added to the food of domestic animals and birds. Today we will talk about what rutabaga is, its beneficial properties and contraindications, cultivation and care in open ground and the timing of planting seedlings.

This vegetable plant in some regions of our country is known under the following names: trouser, bukhva, galanka, gruhva, jaundice, earthen, Swedish turnip and some others.

Some beginning vegetable growers call rutabaga a fodder turnip, but these are two completely different vegetable plants.

The main characteristics of rutabaga, its beneficial qualities, cultivation - all this will be described in detail below.

Description and main characteristics


Rutabaga in the photo has excellent beneficial properties

This root vegetable was obtained by crossing turnips with cabbage. But there is still debate about the place of origin of this vegetable: some scientists believe that the homeland of rutabaga is the Mediterranean, while others cite facts that it was bred in Sweden.

The plant has a two-year development period; in the first season, seedlings appear from the planted seeds. By the end of the season, each sprout will grow into a rosette of foliage with a fairly long root. And the next season the rutabaga blooms, then pods with a large number of seeds appear. The root grows, becoming oval or round by the end of the season. Externally, this root vegetable looks like a turnip. Only the rutabaga pulp can be yellow, orange or white, and on top there is a dense peel of gray-green or purple-red color.

The taste of the pulp of the root vegetable is slightly bitter, reminiscent of the taste of turnips. Eat rutabaga raw (adding to vegetable salads); This vegetable is also steamed or boiled, added to main courses, and also stuffed.

Rutabaga - cultivation and care

Rutabaga should prepare the beds before planting its seeds. This root vegetable grows best in soils with a neutral or slightly acidic reaction. The best types of soil for beds with rutabaga are light loams, sandstones, and cultivated peat.

Another requirement for the soil in the beds is that it must be loose, retaining moisture, but not allowing it to stagnate. Also, groundwater should not come closer to the surface of the earth than 0.5 m. Therefore, growing rutabaga on sandstone or clay soils is not an option - there will be trouble with the harvest.

When choosing a planting site, you should follow the rules of crop rotation. Bad predecessors for rutabaga are any vegetable crops from the same family as cabbage, turnips, radishes and others. It is best to plant it after nightshades, peas, beans, soybeans or any pumpkins.

Beds for rutabaga should be prepared in advance, in the fall. During autumn digging, mullein is added to the soil (can be fresh or half-rotted). Although this vegetable crop is very fond of such organic fertilizer, fresh manure is not applied to the planted plants - in this case, the root crops will be porous and too dry. During the season, you can feed this vegetable with the following fertilizers:

  • Phosphorus;
  • Potassium;
  • Lime;
  • Dolomite flour;
  • Ash.

Rutabaga can be planted in open ground beds with seeds, or you can first grow seedlings at home, and only then plant them in a permanent place.

The timing of planting rutabaga seedlings and caring for them is in the table below:

Seed material is sown in the beds in the first ten days of May. The seeds should be buried in the soil no deeper than 2-2.5 cm. A distance of 0.45-05 m should be made between the rows. When friendly shoots appear, they should be thinned out so that there is a distance of 4-4.5 cm between the shoots. Once the seedlings have at least 5 true leaves, they are thinned out again. In this case, the distance between the sockets must be at least 14 cm.

To plant seedlings, you should prepare containers and fill them with a nutrient mixture for vegetable crops, which can be purchased at any specialty store. It is worth burying the seeds by 1-1.5 cm. After the mass appearance of seedlings, they are thinned out, leaving stronger plants, the distance between which should be about 3.5 cm. Usually at the stage of 3-4 true leaves, seedlings are planted in open ground.

A successful harvest of rutabaga, its cultivation and care in open ground for this vegetable crop consists of regular watering and fertilizing. Rutabagas need a large amount of water, so in 1 sq. m of beds add at least a bucket of water.

2-2.5 weeks after planting seedlings in open ground, the vegetable crop should be fed with liquid mullein. And mineral fertilizers are applied during the period when the root crop begins to actively form. As you can see, rutabaga and its cultivation techniques are not such a complicated vegetable.

Rutabaga and its beneficial properties


Rutabaga variety "Krasnoselskaya" - cultivation and care

Rutabaga has beneficial properties and few contraindications. This root vegetable contains a large amount of vitamins, minerals and other active substances. It is their combination that determines the beneficial properties of rutabaga (in particular, its juice).

A close relative of the turnip, at the beginning of the last century it was one of the most common vegetable crops in our country, but by the middle of the century it had almost ceased to be cultivated. But after several decades of oblivion, interest in rutabaga is growing again.

In its properties, rutabaga is very similar to turnips. And although its nutritional value is low, it boasts a very high content of vitamins.

Specialized garden stores today offer new magnificent varieties, mainly of foreign selection, with excellent characteristics that can change the idea of ​​​​the taste of this vegetable. Among them are the following:

  • Wilma- mid-season rutabaga variety. Root vegetables weighing up to 500 g, are very well stored, suitable for fresh consumption.
  • Child love– mid-early variety (from germination to harvesting 90-110 days). The root crop is round-oval, light yellow, with a gray-green head, weighing up to 500 g, with creamy yellow, dense, juicy pulp, good taste. The variety is characterized by cold resistance and preservation of commercial qualities during long-term storage. It is eaten fresh, boiled, or stewed, and is especially useful for children and the elderly.
  • Zeltene abolu– mid-season variety. The roots are flat, round, gray-green, with a purple tint in the upper part, yellow in the lower underground part. The pulp is yellow and hard. Root weight up to 450 g. Keeping quality is satisfactory.
  • Kohalik blue– mid-season productive variety. The above-ground part of the root crop is violet-bronze, and the underground part is yellow. The average weight of the root crop is up to 900 g. The pulp is yellow, without a spicy aftertaste, juicy, tender, very good taste.
  • Krasnoselskaya- an old, early ripening variety with fairly good taste. The root vegetables are round-flat with a grayish-green head and yellow, hard, sugary pulp.
  • Kuusiku– medium-late (130–150 days), high-yielding variety. The average weight of a root crop is up to 2 kg, the maximum is much more. The shape of the root crops ranges from round to oval-cone-shaped. It is only half immersed in the soil. The color of the skin at the bottom is white, and at the head it is purple-green. The pulp is white, mediocre taste. The variety is resistant to clubroot.
  • Lizzie- a new variety of rutabaga, which in its taste qualities of root vegetables surpasses all previously known varieties.
  • Marian– a high-yielding variety of rutabaga with excellent taste. The variety is resistant to clubroot and powdery mildew.

  • Ruby– the newest variety of rutabaga with excellent-tasting root vegetables. The variety is resistant to powdery mildew.
  • bright dream- mid-season (115-125 days) variety. The root vegetables are oval, yellowish-greenish, weighing 300-350 g. The pulp is hard, intensely yellow, sweet. The variety is resistant to flowering and cold-resistant. Recommended for fresh and processed consumption, and for storage.
  • Swedish yellow- mid-season rutabaga variety. Root vegetables with yellow skin and pulp, weighing up to 600 g, good taste, well stored.

Based on materials from the newspaper “Ural Gardener”

Rutabaga is a very healthy and tasty plant, known to our ancestors and often eaten by them since the time of Peter the Great. It contains a significant amount of vitamin C, B vitamins, and a huge amount of useful microelements. Nowadays, rutabaga is not in very great demand. So, in Great Britain, for example, it is served with meat and is considered a national dish. When we hear the word rutabaga, misunderstanding appears in our eyes. But growing rutabaga is so easy that even an inexperienced gardener can cope with this task. We will tell you about the main varieties of this plant, as well as the technology of its cultivation, planting and care in open ground, and provide photo instructions.

Traditionally, plant breeders have referred to rutabaga as the "sister" of turnips and cabbage. Rutabaga is a kind of hybrid, distantly related to horseradish, mustard and other vegetable crops. Rutabaga is a two-year fruit and vegetable crop that forms a root crop and a leaf rosette in the first year of “its life”, and in the second – seeds and peduncles. This vegetable loves light and moisture and is not afraid of cold and drought. It has a pronounced taste, very much reminiscent of turnips, but is more nutritious compared to it. Rutabaga is a storehouse of vitamin C; it is also rich in vitamin B2 (6.12), minerals, iodine, fiber, etc.

Advice. Since rutabaga is rich in fiber, its consumption is recommended for people suffering from intestinal obstruction or atherosclerosis.

Description of the main varieties and varieties

According to the official classification, rutabaga is divided according to ecological and geographical principles into the following categories:

  1. Western European. It has a slightly raised rosette of leaves, which are most often dissected or pubescent/glabrous. The root crop of Western European rutabaga is shallowly buried in the soil. The pulp is very juicy and strong. Depending on the color of the pulp, Western European rutabaga is divided into two subspecies: white-fleshed and yellow-fleshed. The first has a root crop of the following shapes: oval, round, pear-shaped. The bark is without veins, purple or green. The pulp, accordingly, is white, but the taste is worse than yellow meat. Yellow meat has a flat-round or cone-shaped root crop. The bark (at the top) is green. The pulp is yellow and extremely tasty. This variety of Western European rutabaga is represented mainly by forage varieties.
  2. Northern European. It has a strongly pressed leaf rosette. Leaves are dissected. Fruits are small/medium size. The bark at the bottom of the root crop has a strongly defined mesh structure. The pulp of the fruit is yellow in color with excellent taste.
  3. Siberian. It is very similar in its external characteristics to number one in the classification, but still the Siberian rutabaga is a hybrid. It is distinguished by a strongly pressed rosette (most often without reeds). The root crop can be cone-shaped, round and at the same time slightly flattened. The bark is gray-green. The pulp is yellow, aromatic and tasty.

Rutabaga in open ground

To understand exactly what the differences are between the main types of rutabaga, look for comparative photos on the Web.

Rutabaga is mainly cultivated in two types: table and fodder. The table has yellow flesh (most often) with a delicate taste. The following table varieties of rutabaga are very popular: Krasnoselskaya (mid-early), Swedish (early), Kohalik blue (mid-season), Marian, Ruby, etc.

Fodder varieties are a cross between table rutabaga and fodder cabbage. They have good taste, are not so demanding on growing conditions and are more productive. The most popular forage varieties of rutabaga include: Hoffmanskaya, Vyshegorodskaya, Bangolmskaya, etc.

Planting a plant in the ground

As mentioned earlier, rutabaga is absolutely not afraid of the cold, so its seeds begin to germinate at temperatures even a few degrees above zero. So, the first thing you need to do is sow seedlings either on a windowsill or in a greenhouse. After about a month and a half, when the seedlings have sprung up a little and have a few leaves, you can plant them in open ground.

Advice. In order for the rutabaga harvest to be rich, it is important to choose the right soil for planting it. It should allow moisture to pass through perfectly, but at the same time not allow the plant to sour. This means that alumina, sandstone and soil with close groundwater are absolutely not suitable for seedlings.

The optimal time for planting a plant in open ground is spring (the first ten days of May). But these deadlines are not strict, since to a large extent everything depends on weather conditions. Fertile soil is best suited for rutabaga: sandy loam, loamy or peat (necessarily cultivated).

The area for rutabaga must be prepared in advance: dug up, saturated with compost/manure (at least 3 kg per square meter of soil), urea (at least 15 g per square meter) and salts - phosphate or potassium (at least 30 g per square meter) .

In the prepared soil we make small holes at a distance of about 25 cm from each other. The distance between rows is at least half a meter. The holes must be watered before planting seedlings. We prepare a clay “matter” and dip each root in it before planting the seedlings, trim the leaves a little. Do not plant seedlings too deep into the soil. Be sure to lightly compact the soil and water the planted seedlings.

Proper care of rutabaga

In order for rutabaga seedlings to turn out “good” and the harvest to be “rich”, rutabaga requires competent and timely care, such as: good feeding with fertilizers, prevention of possible diseases, etc.


Rutabaga leaves

Controlling plant propagation in the soil

Caring for rutabaga seedlings in the open ground is as easy as shelling pears: you just need to follow all the basic procedures familiar to every gardener - watering, hilling, loosening the soil, fertilizing and protecting from pests. Then the plant will reproduce at a rapid pace. The last two processes will be discussed below, but for now let’s talk about physical tillage.

So, hilling. It is important to do it on time, namely: when rosettes of covering leaves form. The first loosening of the soil is carried out literally a couple of days after planting the plant. This must be done very carefully, immersing the hoe to a depth of no more than 5-8 cm. In general, during the period of rutabaga propagation in open ground, loosening must be carried out about 5-6 times, carried out in parallel with weeding the soil.

Since rutabaga loves moisture very much, the plant must be watered regularly, but do not overdo it (otherwise the fruits will become too watery) - for rutabaga, 5-6 waterings per season will be enough. How to properly water rutabaga? About 10 liters of water should be used per square meter.

Advice. In order not to reduce the nutritional value of the fruit, rutabaga should be watered in a special way: water should not fall on the root crop from above and wash away the soil from there.

Fertilizing and feeding the plant

Rutabaga requires generous fertilization with various minerals and nutrients. So, already 14 days after the seedlings are planted in open ground, it is necessary to feed them with slurry from manure after the soil is abundantly watered.

Next time, you need to fertilize rutabaga after it has formed a small root crop. We use minerals for feeding. For example, rutabaga reacts very well to copper, potassium, phosphorus (it is advisable to use it, since it significantly increases the sugar content of the fruit), boron (thanks to it, the pulp remains light and aromatic).

Caution: diseases and pests

The first step to combat pests and various diseases will be to sprinkle rutabaga seeds with ashes a few days after sowing. This procedure will protect future seedlings from cruciferous flea beetles. For rutabaga, all the same pests are dangerous as for turnips, cabbage, etc. These are clubroot, white, slugs, aphids, flea beetles, etc.


Phomasis disease

Preventative measures for pest control:

  • compliance with crop rotation;
  • disinfection of seeds before planting in the ground;
  • thorough and regular weeding of the plant;
  • cleaning the soil from the remains of other plants before planting rutabaga;
  • deep digging of the soil;
  • planting compatible plants.

Advice. Many pests will be absolutely not afraid of rutabaga if, along with observing the agricultural practices for growing this plant, you provide high-quality and sufficient fertilizing.

Possible combinations with other plants

There is an excellent combination of rutabaga with any type of salad, herbs (mint, sage, wormwood). Near or between the rows of rutabaga you can plant marigolds and marigolds - they will repel many pests (aphids, whiteweed, cabbage fly).

You can also go the other way and plant plants next to rutabaga that will attract insects that hunt pests (ladybugs, mosquitoes, lacewings, etc.) - dill, carrots, celery.

Under no circumstances should rutabaga be planted in places in the garden where similar crops previously grew: cabbage, radishes, etc. But nightshade, pumpkin and legume predecessors are quite suitable.

Harvesting takes place 24 weeks after planting if you want to enjoy the vegetable in the fall, and 32 weeks if you plan to stock up for winter. If planting is carried out in early summer (relevant for northern regions), then in the fall you can also eat rutabaga or even save it until next spring.

So our article has come to an end. We have provided you with detailed information on how to properly plant rutabaga, care for it, water it, fertilize it, and much more. We hope the information provided will be useful to you. We wish you a rich harvest!

Growing rutabaga in the garden: video