Beetroot – Beta vulgaris, used as a medicine and aphrodisiac by the Romans, is making a comeback. Recent research has shown that regular consumption of beetroot juice lowers blood pressure by increasing blood nitrite levels.
Beetroot is also a great source of protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins, and because carbohydrates are digested slowly, it is a low GL (glycemic load) food that helps stabilize blood sugar. There’s a lot more like this on the brilliant UK Love Beetroot website, so when you’ve read this, check it out.
Of course, as good as beets are for you, it’s even better if you grow your own. Gardening provides exercise and relieves the stress of the day, though it may introduce a new one or two. Home grown beets are fresh, and fresh means that they are packed with all the goodness that nature has created. The beets in your garden or plot should also have a small carbon footprint: it’s local and you haven’t used tons of artificial fertilizers or pesticides to grow it, right?
the heart of the matter
As any reputable gardener will tell you, beets like to grow in well-prepared, well-fertilized soil.
Here’s what you need to do to get earlier beets and higher yields.
- Wait until the soil warms up (9c minimum and about 2 weeks sooner if using plastic or fleece mulch) and frost has passed before sowing your seeds. For baby beets a succession of plantings will be needed. A large early planting is fine if you don’t mind large beets.
- If you are very bothered by slugs or snails, take appropriate steps before planting; it is easier to catch them when the ground is bare.
- After you have prepared the soil, set up a garden irrigation system with lines 30 cm (12″) apart, each line with drippers also 30 cm (12″) apart. The drippers should irrigate small dots of soil in a 30 cm grid pattern.
- Turn on the watering so the bed is marked by a small wet spot under each dripper. With the end of a broomstick, make a depression 3/4″ (2 cm) deep in each wet spot. Plant 4-5 beet seeds in each depression, then cover with fine soil.
- Irrigate regularly. Using an automatic solar pump to irrigate with rainwater from a water barrel is ideal as it can be used anywhere. In heavy soils, it is good to water every 5 days. In well-drained soil, it is better to water more often. Keep watering throughout the crop unless it’s wet anyway.
- With your plants growing in groups in a grid pattern, removing weeds is easy. You can dig in two directions. Just be careful not to dig the irrigation line. Any weeds growing within the beet clumps simply pull by hand; they will come off easily since the soil will be moist.
- As your plants grow, pull out the largest root in each clump to eat, leaving the smaller ones to grow. Do not remove all beets from any group until all other groups are diluted.
What can you expect?
I conducted tests in my own garden in 2010, comparing irrigated beet rows to control rows left unwatered. In all other respects, the rows were treated the same. The seeds were sown on April 9 under fleece. In the first harvest on July 1, 1 meter of control row produced 110 g of beets that were too small to eat. The irrigated row produced 405 g of roots the size of a “small beet”. Irrigation had effectively started production 2-3 weeks earlier.
By the second harvest, on August 3, both rows were producing edible-sized roots. Control and irrigated rows produced 1225g and 1800g respectively. That’s a 47% increase due to irrigation.
A later planting, grown in groups as described above, but without a non-irrigated control, looked even better. Under hot, dry conditions, germination was rapid and uniform, and young plants quickly produced small beets. They have also produced larger beets of good quality. For beets at least, it seems that group planting with garden irrigation is a great way to go:
- early production.
- Good performance.
- Easy weeding.
- Low and efficient water use.
- Delicious and nutritious homegrown food.
first time growers
Beets are a great topic for kids and first-time growers. Beets are easier to grow and less of a problem than most crops. They also grow to a size that can be harvested quickly. These benefits are further enhanced by irrigation. Early growth success is a great motivator whatever your age. If you want to start growing your own or encourage your children to do so, this is a great place to start.
