Beets

There is far more to beets than the canned, pickled variety. These easy to grow, sweet tasting vegetables love mild winters, making them an excellent autumn crop.

Beets (Beta vulgaris) are perennials grown as annuals that prefer loose, slightly alkaline soil, but they are pretty tolerant. Mixing aged compost into heavy clay soil creates the perfect growing medium, just be sure to remove any rocks that might interfere with beet roots as they grow.

Beet varieties

In addition to the traditional purplish red beets, there are yellow, white, and even beets with red and white concentric circles. These other colors tend to have a mild, nutty flavor, and they don’t stain everything they touch. Every part of the beet plant is edible. In fact, the above ground greenery holds a lot of nutrition. Young leaves can be eaten raw and older leaves can be cooked similarly to spinach.

​How to grow beets

Beets (Brianna Walther) CC BY-SA 3.0

Beets grow well in full sun or in shade gardens and they absolutely love raised beds. Beets can be sown directly into the ground as long as temperatures remain cool. Seeds should be planted 1/2 inch deep and thinned to 12 inches apart. It is a good idea to top dress around the plants to help retain moisture and add important nutrients. Be sure to water regularly, allowing the top inch of soil to dry out between waterings. Once you discover how delicious fresh beets really are, you will probably want to start planting them in succession, for a ready supply.

A perennial beet produces abundant edible greens

Beet pests and diseases

All of the usual pests will go after your beet plants: aphids, armyworms, cutworms, flea beetles, grasshoppers, leaf miners, leafhoppers, spider mites, whiteflies, and wireworms. Row covers can be used to protect young plants, but older plants seem to be well equipped to protect themselves. Diseases commonly occurring in beets include whitefly- and aphid-borne viral diseases, powdery mildew, curly top, and various root rots.

Perpetual beet harvest

Your beets can be harvested at any time, but most people wait until the beet root’s “shoulders” have pushed their way above ground. Before you pull up all of your beets, consider this: beets make a lovely foodscape plant. Rather than harvesting all of your beets, leave a strategic few in the ground.These plants will develop short, gnarled trunks that put out tall, feathery, flowering stems that can reach 4 to 5 feet in height.

A 7-year old beet looks more like a tree trunk than a root vegetable

​These stems will produce hundreds of seeds that you can allow to scatter naturally, or you can collect the seeds, or cut the stems and shake the seeds loose wherever you might want beets. Birds and other seed eaters will get most of your beet seeds, but, a lucky few, will, in time, germinate and produce new beets. It ends up, these seeds usually pick the best growing spots for themselves. The greens of your seed-producing beets will continue to be edible for, well, I’m not sure how long. My two have been producing since 2013 and they are still growing strong.

​UPDATE: If a delicious, nutritious crop isn't reason enough to grow beets, cat owners have yet another reason: Research has just shown that adding beet pulp to your cat's food will help them poop out more hairballs, rather thank hacking them up.

​Now you know.