How to grow beetroot

Beetroot is so easy to grow that it is perfect for anyone to try who is new to vegetable growing. Forget about the tennis ball size beetroot you see in supermarkets because home grown, harvested at golf ball size, has a completely different taste and texture. Here we take a look at how to grow beetroot in your own garden, so you can see for yourself and taste that unique, sweet earthy flavour. Although beetroot is usually known for its rich dark red colour, there are varieties in yellow, orange or white.

To pick them at their sweetest, you must grow your own where they can be picked just at the right size. They can be boiled, baked, roasted or just grated and eaten raw. Try them roasted with garlic and sprigs of fennel – delicious! When you are preparing beetroot just twist the leaves off just above the stem and leave the peeling until after cooking; it’s much easier and ‘bleeds’ less.

It is not just the roots that are edible, the leaves can either be eaten young in a salad or left to grow larger and wilt them as you would spinach. And, for the final edible part, after removing the leaves from the central vein to use as spinach, the remaining vein can be braised in the same way as celery.

Seeds of the beetroot are large in size making them simple for children to handle and when kids help to grow vegetables they are far more likely to eat them.

Follow these straightforward steps and you can have tasty beetroot in your garden until the end of October. Or, in the south and west of the country, they can be left in the ground over winter as long as they are covered with a mulch of straw.

• Prepare the ground well and remove all weeds as the beetroot plant does not compete well with competition for food and water. Take out any stones then rake the soil level. About three weeks before you start to sow, sprinkle some general fertilizer over the area and mix in.

• To aid germination, soak the seeds in warm water for about 30 minutes before sowing.

• Make a 2cm deep drill and sow the seeds about 50cm apart. Cover with soil and water well.

• When the seedlings are large enough to handle, thin them out to about 10cm apart and use the thinning in salads.  For a flavoursome salad try a combination of the baby beetroot leaves with crumbled feta cheese and topped with a splash of lemon or lime juice.

• Don’t forget to water well if it doesn’t rain or the temperature rises; when beetroot plants dry out, the roots become woody and inedible.

• Start harvesting the roots after about 10 weeks when they should be golf ball size. Don’t start at one end of the row, pick along the row so the plants remaining in the ground have more room to grow.

• If some plants grow too large for the root to be tender, you will be able to harvest the leaves. For adding to salads, cut the leaves when no more than 5cm. These plants can be used as a cut-and-come vegetable as the leaves will continue to be produced.

Even if you don’t have a garden, beetroot can be grown successfully in a pot on the patio. If you can give the container protection in the early spring – when the weather can still catch you out – you will be able to sow the seeds earlier giving you a harvest ahead of the open sown seeds.

Published July 7th, 2015 by Jordan. Article ref 3824

Tags: beetroot

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