There’s no need to try growing beetroot in a greenhouse. With this in mind, sowings can be made thinly, with each seed pod spaced a set distance from the next. That means each one is likely to produce two or more germinated seedlings, unless you specifically buy a ‘monogerm’ variety which has been bred to produce just one. When you’re growing beetroot from seed, each ‘seed’ you will find in a packet is in fact a pod that contains a number of actual seeds. This way you could be enjoying fresh, earthy roots and delicate, red-streaked greens in the depths of winter: you certainly can grow beetroot all year round! Once the cold weather arrives, cover your crop to keep the ground from freezing solid around the roots.Įither use horticultural fleece, or, if slugs are particularly active, position cloches over the rows (though by winter the pests shouldn’t be much of a problem). If you want to grow beetroots for overwintering this way, then sow a maincrop variety in June or July into well-drained soil. ![]() This does away with the need to store them in boxes of sand, and the roots will be as fresh as possible when dug up from the soil. In many southern and western areas of Britain, winters are now mild enough to leave beetroot sitting in the ground throughout the colder months, for lifting as required. Beetroot also prefers a neutral soil with a pH of between 6.5 and 7.5. You should do this as far in advance of sowing as possible, to enable the organic matter to break down and become fully incorporated into the earth. This will improve its structure, enabling it to hold moisture better in the summer, and warm up quicker in the spring. ![]() But you can significantly improve your chances of getting a good crop of beets by incorporating a much more generous amount of compost into your bed than you ordinarily would. Soil with a high clay content is less ideal: beetroot can struggle to form properly owing to its denseness, and it can become over-saturated in wet spells and dry out too quickly in warm ones. If it wasn’t, then dig over the soil, adding a small amount of compost. If the plot was manured for a previous crop, then no extra organic matter needs to be added. Preparing the ground for beetrootsīeetroot grows best in a sunny, open position in light to medium earth. The foliage is usually red-veined, and in the case of varieties such as ‘Bull’s Blood’, it’s completely red. They have a similar taste to spinach one of its close relatives in the plant world. They’re good to eat, both raw when young and cooked when older. Growing beetroot also means you can pick over the delicious leaves (which will usually have been removed by the time they make it to the shop floor). But in various combinations they give rise to white varieties such as ‘Albina Ice’, yellow beets such as ‘Burpees Golden’, and striped Chioggia varieties such as ‘Candy Stripe’: a spectacular rounded veg with pink-and-white-ringed flesh. The traditional red colouring is down to a mixture of a purple pigment, betacyanin, and a yellow one, betaxanthin. ![]() While the benefits of growing beets are ones you could extend to any garden-grown veg (better taste, far cheaper, personal satisfaction), it’s the number of varieties available to gardeners that is most exciting. ![]() It’s a no-fuss vegetable, too, as the roots will store for months in boxes of just-damp sand. In years past, the odds of being served up a salad side dish without a pile of pickled beetroot was remote, in the UK at least! However, more recently the general public and top chefs have come to realise what grow-your-own gardeners already knew: that fresh beetroot is a deliciously sweet and earthy vegetable in no need of such treatment.
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