Beetroot is delicious and he althy and can be harvested even late in the year. Plus, growing them is incredibly easy. Find out below how to plant beetroot in your own garden or balcony.
How and when should you plant beetroot?
Beetroot can be sown directly into the bed from the end of May or grown at home from March. Choose a sunny location with loose soil. Sow or plant the seeds about 5 cm apart and care for the plants regularly by watering and fertilizing. The harvest takes place after three to four months of growth.
Soil and location for the beetroot
Like almost all vegetables, beetroot needs a lot of sun to grow. Therefore, choose a location with as full sun as possible. Furthermore, the beetroot has quite deep roots and thrives best in loose soil. Here you can find out more about the perfect location for beetroot.
Preparing the soil
So that the beets can thrive optimally, you should prepare the garden soil accordingly. To do this, proceed as follows:
- Use a rake to loosen the soil slightly.
- If heavy or medium feeders grew on the bed last year, you should dig some compost into the soil to increase the nutrient content in the soil.
Tip
Never sow beetroot in the same place as the previous year! Other beet varieties should not have been at the sowing location before.
Sowing beetroot
Beetroot can be sown directly into the bed from the end of May or you can prefer the small plants at home on the windowsill.
If sowing directly in the garden, proceed as follows:
- Use a string to create several gutters 30cm apart with a depth of 1 to 2cm.
- Place one or two seeds in the soil about 5 centimeters apart.
- Cover the seeds with soil.
- Water the freshly sown beetroot well.
You can find out more about sowing beetroot and interesting varieties here.
Tip
Birds love beetroot plants. It is therefore advisable to install protective nets or scarecrows such as old CDs to keep the robbers away from the bed.
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Prefer beetroot
Beetroot can be grown at home from March. This saves pricking and thus time and work. For pre-breeding you can use coconut sticks or similar growing materials or you can use an egg carton that you cut apart and fill with soil. You can later plant the box and the plants in the bed. When pre-cultivating, it is important to ensure that the substrate does not dry out. To do this, cover the cultivation container with cling film. You can find more tips for bringing things forward here.
Good neighbors for beetroot
Like all plants - and people too - beetroot thrives best when surrounded by neighbors who are kind to it. These include French beans, lettuce, dill and cucumbers. It doesn't get along well with potatoes, leeks or corn. Here you can get a complete overview of good and bad neighbors for beetroot.
Care for beetroot
Beetroot needs a lot of water, which is why you should water thoroughly, especially on dry days. To further protect the soil from drying out, you can mulch the bed.
Although beetroot is a medium-feeding plant, it is happy to receive fertilizer with compost. You can find out how and when to treat your beets with compost here.
Mulch protects the soil from drying out and reduces weed growth
Pricking beetroot
Beetroot is usually sown too densely to ensure that there are no gaps in the bed. However, the beets need space to grow. Therefore, the plants should be pricked out as soon as the plants are large enough to be pulled out. He althy plants remain in the bed about 7 to 10cm apart. You can find out more about the correct procedure for pricking here.
Tip
You can use the pricked plants in salads or as edible decorative elements for delicious dishes.
Harvesting beets
Depending on the variety, beetroot has a development time of three to four months. However, tubers and leaves can also be harvested and eaten at any other time. If you sowed at the end of May, you can harvest your large tubers at the end of August/beginning of September. If you want to harvest later in the year, postpone sowing accordingly. However, the final harvest should definitely take place before the first frost.
To get the bulbs out of the ground, grab the greens firmly with one hand and pull. If the beet is very tight, you can loosen it with light jerking movements.
Propagate beetroot
If you want to harvest beetroot seeds yourself and use them for propagation, you have to be patient: because the beetroot only produces seeds in the second year. If you want to grow seeds, leave a few plants in the fall and cover them with some brushwood to protect them from frost. Next year, an impressively tall flower stalk with green-red flowers will form, which will produce seeds in the fall.
