rubbish beetroot

[sawfish]

I'm determined to grow good beetroot this year as I've always grown rubbish stunted ones. Can anyone give me any tips?

Is bonemeal good for beets? Someone else told me that they like salt as they're descended from a beach plant, is this true?

How do you grow successful beets?

???

By the way I've got seedlings of

Boltardy
Cheltenham Mono
Sanguinea
Rouge Crapaudine

[sawfish]

[albacore1854]

Boltardy have always done me proud.I just sow a 30' row, and leave them to it.Water them along with everything else, but no special treatment.

[tim]

Grow Golden!!

[Norfolk n Proud]

Grow Golden!!

Is that Golden Burpee Tim? That's what i'm trying for the first time, along with cylindra. :)

[PurpleHeather]

I ignore most people when I grow. But grand dad always explained it simply

This is how my grandfather taught me when I was 7 and Cliff Richard was on Oh Boy with Marty Wilde, Joe Brown and others.

Beetroot have big seeds so you can plant them by hand.

When the soil is well dug and raked smooth. Get an old broom handle and walk on it to press  a dint in the ground then get your beetroot and plant them about one inch apart in the dint.

Cover them with sifted soil.

Keep them watered. If you let them get thirsty  they will go to seed and you can't do any thing with bolted beetroot.

When the beets get to a golf ball size take out every other one and use it for salads.

The rest, just leave them until you want to harvest for what ever purpose.

No idea what sort of seed he used but I use bolthardy now and that is how  I  still do it. They seem to be fine

[sawfish]

Thanks folks I'm going to copy your grandad PurpleHeather ans get some golden too.

[greenstar]

Sawfish, I'm going to be copying you and Purple Heather - I've never managed to grow a decent beetroot.  I thought it was something to do with the soil on our site, but then I saw my neighbour's giants growing less then 3 feet away from ours.  And we'd used exactly the same type of seed as her.  She just chucks em in and leaves them - doesn't bother weeding, watering or anything. Tch!

[Tee Gee]

Purple heather couldn't have put it better in my opinion.

Now for another bit of useless/useful information;

When the beetroot has matured and you cut it across its diameter you will see growth rings.

These rings will indicate if you watered regularly i.e. all the same distance apart = well grown. Different spacings means intermittent watering.

By the way this is why a show judge sometimes cuts a beetroot i.e. as there are so many varieties they are difficult to judge, so by cutting them the judge can see if they have been grown well and he will judge accordingly hence you might see three quite small beetroots beating three larger ones.