The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowThe Field Guideby Moss & Marrow
Also called rapen, koolraap, meiknolletjes.
In the Netherlands, turnips & swede are in season September to March, at their best in October and November. Turnips & swede are in season now, in November, and this is the peak.
Winter turnips and swede, koolraap, are lifted from September to March. Small May turnips, meiknolletjes, are a short spring crop.
Small and heavy. Big old swedes go woody.
Vitamin C and fibre in the root; the leaves (raapstelen) carry far more, with vitamin K, beta-carotene and calcium.
To get the most: Eat the tops. Young turnips raw or quickly cooked keep the vitamin C.
On our nutrient density chart, a normal serving of cooked turnip (150 g) gives about a fifth of a day's vitamin C and about a tenth of a day's potassium, counting what your body absorbs.
Content per NEVO, the Dutch food composition database. This describes what the food contains, not what it does for you.
Roast or mash. Young turnips are good raw, sliced thin.
Turnip tops, raapstelen, are a vegetable in their own right. The roots need no peeling when young.
4 producers in The Field Guide sell turnips & swede, according to their own website or shop list, each checked against our inclusion criteria and listed by province. Another 174 growers passed our bar for this food group; we have not yet recorded what each of them grows, so ask them or search the map.
Open on the map →Dates read on 2026-10-11. If a window on this page is wrong, tell us with a source.
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A free list of what’s in season this month, then one slow email a month with seasonal tips and goodies.