Beetroot: A Root Vegetable and Leaves for Salad
1 min read By Екипът на Seeds
How to sow beetroot, why each “seed” produces several plants and when to thin.
The special seed
What we call a beetroot seed is actually a fruit cluster containing 2–4 seeds. That is why several plants come up from a single cluster and thinning is essential. Soak the seeds for a few hours before sowing.
Sowing
- When: from April to July, once the soil is above 8–10 °C.
- Depth: 2 cm.
- Rows: 30 cm apart; plants 8–10 cm apart after thinning.
Thinning
Thin in two stages. Do not throw away the young plants you pull out — the leaves and small roots are delicious in a salad.
Harvest
Harvest when the roots are the size of a tennis ball — larger roots turn coarse. For winter storage, lift them before the frosts, cut the leaves 2 cm above the root (without cutting the root itself) and store in sand.
Photo: BriannaWalther, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
