Thinning out your seedlings will produce lovely round beetroots. Though they are close together, they’ve got their own place in the jigsaw puzzle. Crops stacked like this compliment + support rather than compete. Continuity of ground cover looks after our soils in the best of ways as well as using our garden space efficiently.Ĭhoose a companion with a spreading root rather than a bulbing one.
When your beetroot crop is the fast-growing companion to a long term crop, you’ll harvest the beetroot as the companion crop is taking over and filling the space. Increase the usefulness of your space by planting it with long term crops like tomatoes, beans, broccoli, cucumbers or in between young squash plants or low flowers like chamomile and calendula. Companions Beetroot growing in front of the greenhouse tomatoes.īeetroot grows best as a companion plant because it matures fast (50 – 60 days). Protect these newbies with a bit of birdnet or birdsticks and if slugs are a risk then sprinkle bait or whatever it is you do to manage them. Keep an eye beneath the sack and once the beets have 2 leaves, peel the sack off. Leave a 10cm space between each group of seeds.
To direct sow, make a small hole, twice as deep as the size of the seed and pop 3 seeds in it. To tray sow, use small plug trays and pop 3 or 4 seeds in each plug. When soil is warm and light, sow direct otherwise tray sow. Let soil conditions and temperature be your guide. Sowīeetroot is so flexible – you can direct or tray sow it. From one sowing I’ll be harvesting ripe beets over a 3 (or longer) week period. New ones will pop up along the way providing a useful staggered harvest. And they won’t all germinate at the same time either. Bear in mind each seed is actually a cluster of seeds, so you may get 1 or 3 or 6 seedlings from one. Sometimes I’ll double that to have extras to pickle or ferment. Now that there are only 2 beetroot eaters in our house I sow about 20 seeds a month.
Tip the jar upside down and drain the water off just before sowing. I use a mix of seeds for the joy that different coloured beetroots in the same harvest brings. Leave overnight (or for longer if time gets away on you). Put the seed in and cover with warm water. The holes in the lid make draining the soaking water off easy. So is soaking those gnarly little nuggets over night. Make a mound in the case of poor drainage, or grow your beetroot in pots and keep working on your soil for another season. If sandy or clay soil are your lot, spread a layer of compost. If you are growing all tops and no bottoms chances are you are overdoing the additions – pull back and watch the roots go! Beetroot generally needs nothing added.
Beet seedlings not growing free#
The most important thing for beetroot is free drainage – beach dwellers rejoice! Being a fast turn around crop + a root crop, if soil is in good nick, it generally needs nothing added. Soil Prep Beautiful beetroot growing soil – nothing needs doing During the hottest months I dot plants between sprawling squashes or flowers to moderate the heat. I tray sow initially, and once the soil reaches 15☌, I direct sow. From mid to late autumn until mid spring, I sow them direct in the greenhouse. Timingīetween my greenhouse and garden I can grow beetroot year round if I sow a new row a month. A tweak or two in the right direction and hey presto, from fail to success, from sad to happy. All tops and no bottoms, or turning out woody, miserable things. They’re undemanding on the soil, grow quickly, not bothered by pest or disease, use hardly any space and get on well with everyone – all in all easy peasy … or is it? Some of you are having beetroot traumas. Virtues abound for the grower and the cook.
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