Growing BEETROOT
Beta vulgaris
Beetroot is one of my favourite crops to sow in Spring. Growing strong all the way through the season, weight for weight, it is the most plentiful crop you can grow. With its deliciously sweet, earthy flavour it should be a regular feature in any veg patch, and because of its brilliant versatility, colour and unrelenting performance in the garden, it finds its way onto my seed order every year.
The “nose-to-tail” food philosophy should apply to veg as well as meat, so aim to use every bit. The stems and leaves are as tasty as the root, so why waste them? The leaves are delicious used like you would chard or spinach, and with the help of sugar and citric acid, the stems can be turned into fizzy laces.
I sow beetroot in two different ways. Direct sowing beetroot works very well in the warmer days of spring, which I do into a shallow drill in a well-prepared seedbed. Each “seed” contains multiple plants, so spacing the seeds two inches apart does the trick. Some people soak beetroot seeds overnight because it supposedly aids germination, but I’ve never needed to. In the early season, I sow beetroot into trays, allowing two per module, growing-on undercover ready for planting out in April. You should aim to harvest them at about golf ball size, but some varieties stay tender when left to grow on. Thinning out larger beets with a twist, not a pull, will leave smaller beets to grow on without disturbance.
My favourite varieties are:
Cylindra – cylindrical long red beet, good flavour, dark red flesh. This beet does not go woody when it gets large, remains sweet and is generally very delicious.
Golden – this variety grows slower and smaller than red varieties but looks beautiful on the plate and has good bolt resistance.
Chioggia – traditional Italian “bullseye” beet, rosy pink skin, white flesh with pink circles. It grows very well in the South West and when sliced thinly, looks amazing in raw salads.
Detroit Globe – a smooth-skinned classic red beet that gets to a good size without going woody.
