RED BEETS

edelweiss · Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:32 am

My husband and I started this spring to eat raw red beets and have ever since. You know hearing all the health news about these beautiful beets.

So, I am wondering when to grow beets, how, do rabbits, skunks and raccoon 's like them ( like to be for warned) Does anybody grow red beets? Looking forward to hear from you

jal_ut · Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:58 am

Yes, red beets are great! I usually cook them though. The greens are excellent too. I have not had trouble with critters eating them.

Plant them quite early, probably mid April will work where you are. You can also plant some later........ as late as July 1 for a late crop. Put the seed about an inch deep and one seed every two inches in a row. Be advised that the little crinkly "seed" is actually a capsule with several seeds in it. You will need to thin even spreading the seed out like that.

edelweiss · Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:02 am

Can always count on you jal_ut, thank you

treehopper · Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:16 am

If you have deer, they can be a real problem...what they don't eat the tops off they will pull out and eat the root.

edelweiss · Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:24 am

Good evening, how are you? No, I don't have any deer.Forest is too far away.

gumbo2176 · Wed Oct 17, 2012 10:49 am

I grow them a couple times a year and have some coming up now. Like James (jal-ut) mentioned, the seeds are in clusters and need separating. I find if I let them get about 3 inches tall and very carefully take a small hand trowel to uproot the cluster, I can separate them and transplant them with pretty good success. No matter how careful you are, you are going to lose some. Just try to keep the ground moist until they recover and they will do fine.

I ate a lot of canned beets as a kid and fresh is so much better that you'll want to grow them again if you have success with your crop.

Gary350 · Thu Oct 18, 2012 2:33 pm

Garden beets are very very good.

Grocery store beets would gag a magget.

What goes in RED comes out RED the next day.

DoubleDogFarm · Fri Oct 19, 2012 2:28 pm

A few beets and carrots

Red Ace beets
Nelson carrots
[img]https://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h300/eric_wa/Double%20Dog%20Farm%20%20%20Vegetables%20and%20%20Fruits/CarrotsandBeetsOct19th2012002_zpsd69913bb.jpg[/img]

Eric

thepumpkin · Fri Oct 19, 2012 6:22 pm

Hmm these carrots look great!

One more thing about consuming the read beets - they are great in juice too.

PunkRotten · Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:06 pm

I 2nd that about juicing them. Almost daily I add a chunk to my smoothie and I often juice them too. I also like the gold/yellow beets too. I am growing a whole row this year of red and golds.

sciencegal · Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:42 pm

Beets are good when grated, too. I make a slaw out of grated beets, carrots and kohlrabi. Although, I boil the beets for a short time, just enough to be able to peel them easier. I also grew Red Ace beets this year. The slaw has this impossible-to-believe, glowing red color.

btrowe1 · Sun Oct 21, 2012 1:40 am

I have 5 hefty ones left in the ground, was womdering how to do them, just saw some great ideas above thank you.

digitS' · Sun Oct 21, 2012 12:30 pm

This was a year to not grow so many beets. DW doesn't eat them even tho' baby beets may be my favorite vegetable

.

Only 1 row of beet seeds were sown. They were near my neighbor's raspberry/grape jungle. Too close! Mr. Rabbit lives in there and tends to eat anything that grows close. He ate on them so hard that some died. The plants in that bed just didn't grow.

Move off several miles to the "Shady Corner" garden. Probably a little too much shade there for beets but there was room so a replacement row went into 1 of those beds. The plants had just begun to reach a nice size and we'd had one little harvest and something showed up and really tore them up! Well, didn't tear them out of the ground but ripped up the leaves. I don't know what it was. We had a family of pheasant that liked that garden another year but the lettuce was left alone and that was their favorite.

My guess is that a marmot came thru. I have seen these critters near that garden in earlier years but never had problems there as elsewhere. Marmots are groundhog cousins - big squirrels. Something sure chewed them up. Once again, the damage was so bad that the beet plants didn't recover well and I only got a few more.

Steve

Taiji · Sun Oct 21, 2012 2:30 pm

I have grated beets for salad too, and use them in my daily juice if I have too many to eat.

Most people know the trick of when boiling beets to cook them, leave on the roots and about an inch of the stem. That way all the red doesn't bleed into the water.

Another great way to cook them is simply bake them as you would a potato. Again, leaving on the root and some stem. When they come out, the skin comes off easily, and the flavor is incredible, since no moisture or color is lost.

michelletomato · Sat Mar 09, 2013 1:59 pm

I till up the soil real good then hill it up in rows. I can only get it hilled up about 8 or 9 inches high but other gardeners hill it up about a foot. Plant the seeds in the top of the hill and keep them moist. Adding a hummus and manure mixtue (sold in bags) to the soil has helped my beets develope better. I've found they don't do well in hot weather either. good luck!

michelletomato · Sat Mar 09, 2013 1:59 pm

I till up the soil real good then hill it up in rows. I can only get it hilled up about 8 or 9 inches high but other gardeners hill it up about a foot. Plant the seeds in the top of the hill and keep them moist. Adding a hummus and manure mixtue (sold in bags) to the soil has helped my beets develope better. I've found they don't do well in hot weather either. good luck!

tomf · Sat Mar 09, 2013 11:19 pm

Beats like loose soil, so a good organic rich soil works well with beats and any root crop. I start every thing in the green house, just my way of getting a jump on the season and knowing what are weeds. I have a deer fence with a rabbit fence at the bottom around my garden so I can't say how much the rabbits eat them.

ElizabethB · Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:05 am

I waited too late for cool weahter planting. G picked up a nice bunch of beats yesterday with lots of nice greens. I rinsed te greens then cooked them in the water clinging to the leaves and a little salt, pepper and butter until just tender. My favorite green. I cubed and boiled the beets with salt pepper, tsp of olive oil and a tbsp of butter. Lovely. For lunch today I made a cold beet salad. Added boiled egg and parsley to the cold beets.

Really one of my fave root crops. I like greens but beet greens are #1 for me.

Raw and shredded in a salad is to die for.

applestar · Sun Mar 10, 2013 6:19 am

I cubed and boiled the beets with salt pepper, tsp of olive oil and a tbsp of butter.

When you do that do you peel the beets first?

Dillbert · Sun Mar 10, 2013 7:24 am

baked, roasted, boiled . . .

I prefer not to peel them.
(a) because I'm a lazy cook
(b) once cooked the natural skin layer comes off _way_ easier than via a peeler
(c) keeping the natural skin layer prevents creating a dry leathery surface of the pre-peeled roots.

ElizabethB · Sun Mar 10, 2013 7:52 am

Yep - I peel first. I never liked beets as a child but Mom served canned beets. GROSS! Like so many things fresh is sooo much better. Another one is brussel sprouts. HATED them as a child. LOVE them now.

valley · Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:03 am

Rabbits will eat beets down to nothing, given half a chance. At our Nevada place we have a fence to keep out the horses, the garden is in a smaller fenced area to keep out the rabbits, mice and a type of chipmonk of whatever. We had to put a hot wire around the bottom which was the best thing to keep out the critters. Last year we had a good crop of beets, we liked them raw, cooked and pickled. Have a great season.

Richard