Allotments 4 All

I managed to grow them this year but they were very small apart from 6 or 7 of them.

What am I doing wrong?
What do I have to do to get rows of large beets?
Is there a variety of huge beets someone can recommend or a certain way to prepare the soil?

Its annoying me lots.

Mine were rubbish this year aswell. I grew Boltardy which are normally just a bit smaller then tennis balls, a tip i read somewhere was to prepare the bed then water with tomato fertiliser a day before sowing.

I put a row of bulls blood beets in quite late, with a view to using the leaves as salad. To my suprise they have grown very quickly in the warm wet weather, and I now have a row of good sized beets! Mine were grown in a raised bed topped with quite fine compost from last years greenhouse grow bags. The carrots I grew in it were pants (carrot root fly, despite growing varieties they are not supposed to like, and earthing up well), but the beets obviously liked it!

I sowed beetroot into pots and planted out and later i sowed some straight into soil on the same bed all grown under my Climbing French Beans, then I sowed more on another plot after the garlic came out.

The ones I started in pots grew really well...in fact some grew too big too fast! The ones I sowed in the same bed have also done well. the ones in the other bed grew leafy but didn't fatten up. The difference between the sites
1. Shaded = more moisture
2. Soil in the bean bed is better it's had more manure/compost added to it in the past and the soil is a lot lighter.
3. Soil in the ex-garlic bed heavier and dried out.

thanks folks.

Its just odd that you get such random size variation. None of my other veg is like that, apart from perhaps swedes.!