Regrowing turnips from the supermarket

Like any other gardener worth his mettle I watch YouTube videos. I was watching some videos with my daughter one night when we came across a video about a guy who was regrowing a pineapple from the top. Basically, he put cut off the top and trimmed away some of the leaves and placed it in some water. A quick check revealed a few other videos he had done with other fruits and vegetables he had purchased and had done the same thing with. He would use toothpicks to suspend the fruit or vegetable, so that just the bottom was in the water. The idea is that roots would grow and because it was suspended there would be room for the roots to grow down.

So, I tried that with a carrot. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The carrot just got soggy and slimy and generally...nasty.  I tried it twice more and both of those resulted in the same slimy mess. So, I decided to try something else.

It's Turnip Time!!! 

We eat turnips at least once a week because we eat sinigang on a pretty regular basis. So, I took three toothpicks and suspended the turnip in the water to allow the roots to grow out the bottom. Result? A slimy mess just like with the carrots. I tried it again with another turnip and I ended up with the same results.  I don't know about you, but by that point I was getting pretty frustrated. A lot of my other projects using this method worked out well. Why wouldn't the carrots and turnips?

UPDATE: November 25, 2015

Well, today we were cleaning out the refrigerator and someone discovered an uneaten turnip in the bottom of the crisper drawer. Judging by the texture, not very firm, it was not going to be something we would be eating. However, unlike my other turnip experiments, this one had some pretty good looking leaves coming off the top.  So, I started to feel a bit more encouraged.  I cut off the bottom three quarters, chopped it up and tossed it into the compost garden bed. The top part I put into a small cup of water.

With such a nice looking turnip I decided I had a pretty good chance this time. So, I sat down and did a little digging on Google and found a site that talks about regrowing turnips, specifically.

BINGO!

OK. Now, I know what I was doing wrong. Turnips and carrots are not the types that you regrow in water. Instead you have to plant them in some deep (8 inches or so) of loose nutrient rich soil. AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Well, I don't have any soil that deep. I certainly don't have any nutrient rich soil that deep. So, I decided to deep six this experiment. Oddly enough, I can't bring myself to toss away the turnip, considering how good that top looks.

At this point, I have no idea what I am going to do with it. I have a feeling that in the end I am just going to toss it out into the compost garden bed.  I may even just plant it behind the leeks, but from what I read turnips need full sun and that area definitely doesn't get full sun. I don't know. Maybe, I will try it anyway, just to see what happens.

UPDATE: November 26, 2015

After letting the turnip sit in some water over night, I decided to try and plant it in the left garden bed by the leeks.

Turnip is in the center of the picture. 
The white curly stems and yellow leaves.

The first thing I did was dig a nice deep hole and I made sure that the surrounding soil was nice and loose. As I did with the leeks, I mixed in some of the decomposing leaves to make sure the soil stays relatively loose. 

UPDATE: December 2, 2015

I have a few pictures of the turnip now. Those long white...stems?...are gone and the plant has sprouted some nice looking green leaves. Needless to say, this turnip has really taken to being in the soil. I am excited to see what happens with it.

Planted turnip surrounded by some fallen leaves.

UPDATE: December 4, 2015

Two days ago I had high hopes for this plant. Unfortunately, it has taken a turn for the worse.

CLOSED: December 8, 2015

Well, all trace of this turnip above the ground has disappeared. I have no idea what is happening below the soil and I am hesitant to dig it up. It's really a shame because at one point it really looked like it was doing well.

For now, I am declaring this project dead. If something happens I will post another update.