Grow Your Own Beets from Seed

If you're not a member of the beets fan club yet, you just might become one after you pull your first lumpy taproot from the soil and shake off the dirt. (Just don't be surprised if your homegrown beet is a little narrower than the ones you're used to seeing at the grocery store.)

Grab a packet of seeds if you're interested in growing your own beets. Young beet plants are delicate little things that really don't like their taproot being disturbed once they've started growing. For that reason, I sow my beets directly in the space where they'll grow to maturity. I recommend you do the same. (That means resisting the temptation to buy beet seedlings from the garden store. Beet seeds are so much cheaper anyways!)

Let's look at how to direct sow seeds for this cool season crop in the garden.

When to Plant Beets

Beets love cooler weather. Find your ideal planting window by looking for a two- to three-month period where the temps will be over 45°F but below 85°F, at least for the most part. For most of you, that will be in the spring and fall. If you live in a warmer climate, that might be over your winter months. If you can find this window as the weather either warms or cools, plant as soon as you can at the beginning of that window.

In the spring, you can sow beet seeds as soon as the soil is workable, even if you're still a couple weeks away from your last frost date. Beets are pretty cold tolerant, so you don't need to worry if you get a couple more frosts.

In the fall, sow beet seeds as soon as the temperature begins to drop, around 6 to 8 weeks before your first frost date. Your beets can hang on in freezing weather if you get some frost before they're fully mature, especially if you extend your season using frost cloth.

Where to Grow Beets

Since beets need vertical depth to stretch down their roots, raised beds or grow bags that are at least 12 inches deep are the ideal growing space to give them plenty of room, plus good drainage.

Beets do best when they receive at least 6 hours of sun per day—that way, they have enough energy to form that nice, full root. Make sure you're giving beets a spot in the garden bed where they won't be shaded by taller plants.

Step 1: Soak Beet Seeds

Beets can take their sweet time germinating, but you can speed things along a bit by soaking your beet seeds in room-temperature water about 24 hours before you intend to plant them. Water is what tells the seeds it's time to wake up and grow.

Step 2: Prepare the Soil

Beets and other root crops need the soil to be nice and loose so their taproots can expand without feeling too much pressure. Use a hori hori or a long trowel to loosen up the top 6 to 8 inches of soil in the planting area. This is especially important in a shallow raised bed. Break up large soil clumps and remove any pebbles you find while you work. That way, beets don’t have to fight to send their roots down deep. 

Add some compost to the top of the soil. Compost improves soil structure and gives beets a nice little nutritional kickstart. If you're worried about drainage in your raised bed, you can also add a little bit of coarse sand and work it into the soil.

Go over the soil surface with a hand rake and then press it flat with your trowel or hori hori so that you have a smooth planting surface.

Step 3: Sow Beet Seeds

Sow your beet seeds about half an inch deep and 4 inches apart. I can't recommend a planting ruler enough to help you space out seeds when you're direct sowing in the garden. Make sure to only place one beet seed per planting hole.

Once all your seeds are placed, cover them up with a light layer of soil or compost.

A Note on Beet Seeds

Despite not being very large, each beet seed is actually a cluster of two, three, or even four little seeds. These multigerm seeds form when beet flowers grow in clusters fused together by the petals.

While I would usually take this moment to stress the importance of spacing your root crops out, beet seeds are working against you in the spacing department. No matter how well you space your seeds, you'll likely have to thin beet seedlings once they've germinated to give each beet plenty of room to grow to its fullest potential. I'll talk more about thinning in a bit.

Step 4: Water Seeds in

Use a soft setting on your hose to water the planting area. Mimic a gentle rainfall so as not to displace all those beet seeds. 

Beets can sometimes take a long time to germinate, up to 21 days. Don't let the planting area dry out before your beets sprout. Keep the soil consistently moist but not soggy. Some gardeners will cover portions of their garden in burlap to hold in moisture until seeds germinate.

If you're not covering, make sure to mark where you've sown beet seeds so you don’t forget in two weeks and plant something else there.

As long as the temperatures remain in the optimal range, you can plant new beet seeds every two weeks during the growing period. That way, you'll have a more continuous root crop harvest.

Step 5: Thin Beet Seedlings

Once your beet seeds have sprouted and are about 2 inches tall, you'll need to thin the seedlings so that each beet has enough space to grow to its fullest root potential. Thinning is always an important (yet nonetheless annoying) task for growing roots, but it's doubly so for seeds that are multigerm. For every one beet seed you plant, you should expect to need to thin one, two, even three seedlings.

Your goal with thinning is to make it to where each beet seedling has 3 to 4 inches around it. You'll end up with about 9 beets per square foot of garden space this way. Look for two seedlings too close together and pick one of those to remove, ideally whichever one seems a little more spindly or less hardy than its neighbor. 

To thin your seedlings, simply cut the greens of unwanted plants at soil level, rather than ripping the plant up and potentially disturbing its neighbor's delicate roots. (Learn more about thinning seedlings.)

Thinning always feels wasteful to me. But the great thing about thinning beets is that you can enjoy the greens you cut. You may notice they look like baby Swiss chard plants. That's because they're in the same plant family, and you can toss those beet leaves into your salad bowl for a super-nutritious treat!

Time to Sow Some Beet Seeds!

Once planted, watered in, and thinned, beets require little from you. This is a great crop to grow if you're about to head out of town or if you only have a few minutes to garden each week.

If you're feeling impatient while your taproots are forming, don't forget beet greens are 100 percent edible, nutritious, and delicious (try sautéing them).

Once you see a tiny seed turn into this sweet, juicy root that you pull from the ground, you’ll be eager to start the next round of seeds so you can feel the rush of growing your own beets all over again.

Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary again!