Cool-Season Vegetables: How to Grow Beets
If you understand just canned beets, then beets from the autumn or spring garden is going to be a surprise. First, they are available in different shapes, from around more oblong, and a range of colours. You can also find yellow, gold, white or striped, although there is the traditional deep red. Even the leaves and stalks are some reds and greens. Sauté the leaves as a green, and then delight in the roots in salads, in soups (who doesn’t understand of borscht?) As well as a side dish.
More: How to grow vegetables in autumn and spring
The New York Botanical Garden
When to plant: Sow seeds in early spring to harvest beets in late spring or early summer. In mild-winter climates, you can plant them at the end of summer and in autumn.
Days to maturity: 45 to 65
moderate requirement: Full sun to partial shade
Water necessity: Frequent water
Favorites: Big Red, Bull’s Blood, Chioggia, Crosby’s Egyptian, Cylindra, Detroit Dark Red, Formanova, Golden, Gladiator, Green Top Bunching, Little Ball, Little Mini Ball, Lutz Green Leaf, Red Ace, Ruby Queen, Sangria, Sweetheart, Yellow Detroit
Robin Amorello, CKD CAPS – Atmoscaper Design
Planting and care: Be sure the soil drains well and is free of rocks and lumps, and which may hinder root development. Keep sowing each month and fall to ensure a harvest. Plant seeds about an inch apart and cover with a quarter inch of compost or vermiculite.
Robin Amorello CAPS – Atmoscaper Design
When plants are small, combine care and harvesting from thinning the plants to about 2 inches apart and ingesting both roots and greens. Keep the soil moist until the seeds germinate, then keep to maintain the garden well watered. Mulch will help keep the soil cool.
Pests aren’t many, but you may attract some beetles, leafhoppers, leaf miners and wireworms. Rotating the crop will help keep problems to a minimum.
Jocelyn H. Chilvers
Harvest: After thinning, crop beets when the cap of the origin is roughly 1 inch wide. Don’t let them get too large; roughly 3 inches is as big as you would like. In cold-winter ponds, complete inside all harvesting before very cold weather sets. Or, if you would like, pay the plants with approximately a foot or so of hay and straw to keep the ground from freezing and keep to harvest as long as the crop remains.
More: How to grow vegetables in autumn and spring