The Eastham Turnip Is a Seed Line Now, and November Is When It Comes Home

"It's the seed, not where it's grown, that makes it an Eastham," the Orleans farmer Judy Scanlon told the Provincetown Independent in 2024. She was answering people who question her turnips because she grows them about 80 miles away in Westport. She moved her field there because so much Cape farmland has been lost to development, and Westport had the acreage the big plants need.

Scanlon's line explains how Eastham's best-known vegetable still exists. The town no longer grows it in any real quantity. A small group of farmers keeps it going by passing along seeds that trace back to one man's field on Aspinet Road. On Saturday, November 21, that seed comes back to town for a day. The Eastham Public Library, the Chapel in the Pines and the Eastham Historical Society all open their doors for the Eastham Turnip Festival.

A town crop the town stopped growing

The Eastham turnip used to be a commodity. In 1910, according to the Provincetown Independent, Eastham's sandy fields produced 10,710 bushels of turnips, more than every other town from Provincetown to Yarmouth combined. The same paper's 2025 festival preview cites a 1922 state Department of Labor report. That report named asparagus as Eastham's most important crop with turnips a close second, and it put the best farmland in the southern part of town, between Great Pond and Town Cove. Farmers grew so many turnips that the town dug dozens of turnip pits. These were trenches about three feet deep, filled with the harvest and covered with seaweed and sand to get through the winter.

The farm years stuck with the people who grew up in them. Art Nickerson's brother George recalled them in 1988, as the Provincetown Independent reported:

"If we got hungry at noontime, we went and raided somebody's turnip field, peeled a turnip, and ate it raw."

The Depression ended the business. Eastham farmers had shipped turnips to Boston, and that market disappeared. In an account retold by the Provincetown Independent, Shirley Williams, born a Nickerson, remembered that the last year her father planted turnips, the family got a freight bill back and no payment.

Art Nickerson, who lived from 1915 to 2008 and became known as "The Eastham Turnip Man," had saved seed anyway. He went back to growing turnips in 1975 and sold them to local grocers. According to the Provincetown Independent, he believed a true Eastham turnip had to grow in the town's sandy soil, and that people who knew the turnip could taste the difference. He farmed the old way too, with antique planters and a 1949 Ford tractor.

Even the vegetable's identity is a little uncertain. Edible Cape Cod describes it as large and sweet, with white flesh and a crown that turns purple as it matures. It also notes that people still disagree about where it came from and whether it is closer to a turnip or a rutabaga. Eastham's soil is the advantage most clearly on record. A 1922 state report called it "particularly well adapted to asparagus and turnip growing."

Where the seed went after Aspinet Road

Nickerson's view was that the soil makes the turnip. The people growing it today mostly depend on the seed. In its 2021 reporting, the Provincetown Independent wrote that every vendor selling Eastham turnips that year, and probably every grower, could trace their seed to Nickerson's field on Aspinet Road.

The seed has moved through a short chain of farmers. Eastham farmers David and Esther Raphaelson gave Scanlon her first seeds. Scanlon then shared seed with Cape Cod Organic Farm and with Bob Wells in Eastham. Her reason, as she told the Provincetown Independent in 2024: "It's an heirloom that should be preserved and enjoyed, so other people need to grow it."

The gap between the old harvests and recent ones is easiest to see in numbers. That 2021 report found only one vendor selling Eastham turnips actually grown in Eastham. Jared Kimler and Brian Tingley were leasing a third of an acre at Redberry Farm, off Schoolhouse Road, and expected about 600 turnips, roughly 12 bushels. That is around one-tenth of one percent of the town's 1910 harvest. The rest of the 2021 supply came from Brent and Peg Hemeon in Harwich and from Peter and Dilys Staaterman of Longnook Meadow Farm in Truro.

Volume now comes from off the Cape. Scanlon and her husband, Sig Winslow, told the Provincetown Independent that their 2023 harvest was their largest yet, about 10,000 pounds, most of it sold to Friends' Marketplace in Orleans. In November 2024, Scanlon said the store was going through more than 200 pounds a day, and as much as 500 pounds a day at the peak of what she calls "Turnip Madness" just before Thanksgiving. Scanlon also says that an Eastham turnip keeps its flavor even at 20 pounds, unlike roots that turn woody as they get bigger.

The seed also ends up in other foods. In 2025, Mary DeBartolo of the Local Scoop, who runs the 27 Below kitchen in Orleans, made turnip ice cream with maple, cinnamon and cranberries. The turnips and cranberries both came from Lake Farm Gardens in Orleans. Her first pints went to Friends' Marketplace in 2023 and sold out the day they arrived.

Following the seed to a farm stand this fall

Since the turnip grows across several towns, buying one in November means knowing the network. The festival keeps a where-to-buy page that lists these outlets. The page is undated and posts no 2026 harvest dates, so calling ahead is the safe approach, which the page itself recommends for the Eastham Superette.

Only one of the eight is in Eastham. That fits everything above.

The market calendar adds a wrinkle this year. The 2026 Edible Cape Cod market guide lists the outdoor Orleans Farmers' Market on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon at 19 Old Colony Way, with its last day on November 21, 2026. That is the same Saturday as the festival. Anyone who wants a turnip from a market table can stop in Orleans in the morning and get to Eastham by midmorning. After that, the winter market moves to 5 Namskaket Road in Orleans and runs Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon, beginning December 5, 2026.

November 21, when the turnip comes back to town

The festival started as a one-off. The first one, in 2003 at the Chapel in the Pines, drew so many people that the chapel overflowed. The idea came from Patricia Ford, then the library's assistant director. Outreach librarian Marianne Sinopoli organized it from 2013 through 2024, and Library Director Melanie McKenzie ran the 2025 festival. In 2024, library staff estimated attendance at about 800.

The 2026 schedule published so far:

1. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Eastham Public Library, 190 Samoset Road. "Turn Up for Fun Day," with free turnip-themed entertainment and amusements.
2. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Eastham Historical Society. All museums open, with special displays on Eastham's agricultural history at the Swift-Daley Complex, 2375 State Highway, and the 1869 Schoolhouse Museum, 25 Schoolhouse Road.
3. 11 a.m., Chapel in the Pines. Cathy Hatch and the Cape Cod Ukulele Club.
4. 1 p.m., Chapel in the Pines. Watch Your Step, new to the lineup this year.

The festival site says more details will come from "Team Turnip." Several traditions have carried over from year to year. Nauset Fellowship President Bob Seay gave his annual Blessing of the Turnips at the chapel in 2025. The library ran turnip bowling and the giant-turnip weight guess, and the Wampanoag Nation Singers and Dancers performed.

The weight guess is where the growers show up most clearly. Scanlon has supplied the giant turnip. In the fall she stakes "the biggest of the big" in her field as candidates. The 2023 turnip weighed 19 pounds, 2 ounces. In 2024, a 17-pound, 6-ounce turnip produced the contest's first three-way tie.

The Historical Society displays connect the day to everything above. The Swift-Daley Complex and the 1869 Schoolhouse Museum tell the story of the farm town that grew 10,710 bushels. The library lawn next door shows what replaced it, a turnip carried by a few growers and celebrated by a town that mostly buys it from elsewhere. Early in the month, the Schoolhouse Museum hosts the society's Veterans Day ceremony on November 11 at 10 a.m., and the museum is open from 10:30 a.m. to noon afterward.

The turnip on Lower Cape menus

Taste of Turnip extends the festival to restaurants and bakeries. The festival site says the 2026 list of participating restaurants and their menus will be posted in November. The 2025 list shows the range from last year. In Eastham, Basco Grill served turnip fritters, turnip fries and turnip crème brûlée. Barley Neck Inn in Orleans had Eastham turnip and herb soup. Cottage Street Bakery in Orleans baked turnip-feta-bacon scones, and Hole in One Bakery made a caramelized onion, cheddar and Eastham turnip croissant. JoMama's offered turnip hummus, and Sunbird served curried turnip soup and a griddled turnip sandwich. Those were 2025 dishes. This year's list goes up when the festival posts it.

Last year's ice cream, for one, started with turnips from Lake Farm Gardens in Orleans, grown from a seed line that reaches back to Art Nickerson's field on Aspinet Road.

If you're getting to know Eastham's November calendar, from the turnip festival to the farm stands that carry it, The Loveland Group is glad to share what we know about the Lower Cape off-season. Start a conversation with us and we'll put together a personalized neighborhood consultation around how you spend your time here.