Beet Harvest

landarch on 6/26/2014, 2:48 pm

Picked the remaining squares of beets at our SFG in the community garden...lots of nice tennis ball sized roots...ready for roasting or pickling.

Found some more beauties hiding in the garden...I think these are Black Krim but I need to dig my planting diagram out and verify...(I've planted 16 different varieties this year). Hopefully it will continue to be a good tomato year.

Marc Iverson on 6/26/2014, 8:24 pm

Beautiful beets!

I didn't know Black Krim were so heavily lobed. I've got to try one sometime.

FeedMeSeeMore on 6/26/2014, 9:16 pm

Those look great. Makes me want to try beets next year for sure. I love them pickled.

giant_trainer on 6/26/2014, 9:37 pm

My beets are very small... not much top at all. Planted from seed, almost 2 months ago. Wondering what I did wrong.

landarch on 6/26/2014, 10:49 pm

I find beets can be tricky...I've read that beets can be stunted with inconsistent watering, tight spacing, too much fertilizer, etc...but I get confused when I have both really nice beets and really poorly developed beets in the same square.

I've even read that some years are good for beets and some bad (temps, rain, sun, etc.). Fall is supposed to be prime for beets in our area, however last fall I could not get a beet to form whatsoever, even with successive seedings.

landarch on 6/26/2014, 10:58 pm

My planting diagram says they are Black Krim...or possibly Carbon. A quick check of images for Black Krim and Carbon show both smooth/round and lobed forms...so who knows. My first thought was that one of my little ones could have messed with a few plant labels before planting.

Here's a list of tomato varieties I planted this year:
Black Krim
Hillbilly
Carbon
Green Zebra
Cherokee Purple
Pink Brandywine
Jetstar
Rutgers
Better Boy
San Marzano
San Marzano Lungo No.2
Indigo Apple
Thai Pink Egg
Early Pink
German Johnson
Black Cherry

giant_trainer on 6/26/2014, 11:00 pm

How do you know when they are ready to harvest?

landarch on 6/26/2014, 11:24 pm

I can usually see the top of the beet root above the soil...when it looks big enough go ahead and pick it. I've read that if beets get too big or grow into the heat of the summer they can get tough and woody.

boffer on 6/27/2014, 11:27 am

@landarch wrote:I find beets can be tricky...I've read that beets can be stunted with inconsistent watering, tight spacing, too much fertilizer, etc...but I get confused when I have both really nice beets and really poorly developed beets in the same square...

I have read on some beet seed descriptions that it is their nature to grow at different rates. They try to sell that feature as a positive: it's a naturally occurring staggered harvest. But I find that the laggard plants in a square never develop properly, so I prefer to pull them too when I harvest the big ones, and then re-plant the square.

I can't find the right combination for a dependable crop either. For me, they're a bit like radishes: sometimes they grow fast and beautiful; sometimes they don't develop.

**camprn** on 6/27/2014, 4:05 pm

Laggard is a great word!

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