I have often had bad luck with beets, they just haven't bulbed. I almost gave up, but I keep hoping, and things are getting better.
Last year I started them indoors in soil blocks and put them out early under cover and I did get beets, although smallish. I read somewhere to snip the tap root before transplanting, but I didn't do it, and they grew fine.
This year I tried multi-sowing (per Elliot Coleman) in soil blocks. I started them around February 20th, set out first week of April under cover, and began harvesting by twisting out the largest of the bunches May 29th, progressively harvesting more as the remaining beets grew larger. I planted nine (I think?) blocks in one 6 foot row, about 4 beets per block, with radishes and eventually carrots on either side. I liked how multisowing allowed me to fit a lot of beets under one of my few covered beds in early spring. I'm not sure they benefitted from being started quite so early, I may push back a few weeks, but they will still need cover. I'm also going to look into whether I should supplement any differently (I just top with compost and manure) to encourage bulbing.
 |
hardening off late March
(middle of tray) |
 |
| April 3, transplant day |
 |
April 10th
|
 |
| May 26th |
 |
| May 29th |
 |
| June 12th |
 |
| June 19th |
 |
| June 30th |
I actually was busy with a lot of other garden vegetables so I ended up just saving most of them in a bag in the fridge (separate from the greens, which I ate along the way) until early July, when I made my favorite beet salad.
This recipe comes from Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons: A Way with Vegetables. I don't buy many cookbooks - I usually just borrow from the library and decide against it - but this one made the cut. The recipe is posted several places on-line, here's one. The first time I made this I made a half batch, sure that we would hardly be able to eat more than a dollop of a raw beet slaw but I was so wrong. It's a favorite, and a worthy celebration of garden beets, parsley and mint.
I made it exactly like the recipe the first time, hand ground pistachio butter and all, and it was amazing. I would do it that way again for a special occasion but much more often I serve it with store-bought roasted chunky almond butter and it's very good and much easier. I have always julienned the beets - I like how the crunch holds up and it's kind of a labor of love with my homegrown beets, but grating is also supposed to work. If you have multiple colors of beets you may want to keep the non-red ones separate until the last minute, as they will soon all be indistinguishable. I usually ignore instructions to peel beets but since they are raw here, in this case I comply.
Comments