Grow Your Own Beets

Beets grow underground, which makes their growth feel a bit mysterious. Between radishes, carrots, and beets, I've found beets to be the most complicated root vegetable to grow. It took me a while to figure out exactly what they wanted for ideal growth.

Your gardening efforts will all be worth it when you pull these bulbous taproots from the soil. Homegrown beets taste so much better than the roots you find at the store, I promise.

For true garden-fresh flavor you can't beet and crisp greens, you've gotta try growing your own beets. Here's everything you need to know to plant, tend, and harvest organic beets in your vegetable garden.

The Best Beet Types to Grow

One of the best parts about growing your own is getting to branch out from the standard roots you find at the grocery store. You can grow beet varieties in shades of black, white, yellow, and red; you can even grow beets that look more like carrots. Here are my favorites to grow in my kitchen garden:

Red Beets

Red beetroots are pretty classic. That deep red color comes from an antioxidant called betanin, which can help you prevent DNA damage in your body. My favorite red beet varieties are Detroit Dark Red, Bulls' Blood, and Early Wonder Beets.

Golden Beets

Golden beets taste a bit less earthy and are much sweeter than their red counterparts.

Chioggia Beets

This heirloom type has a red outside but then a really fun red-and-white-striped interior, kind of like a peppermint. You might also see chioggias referred to as Candy Stripe or Bull's Eye Beets.

When to Plant Beets

Beets are in the Amaranth family alongside spinach and Swiss chard. All of these plants love cooler weather. They grow best when temps are just above freezing, up to around 65 to 75°F. Beets are best grown in the spring and fall in colder climates or during the winter months in warmer climates.

In the spring, plant beets from seed directly in the garden as soon as your soil is workable. Beets are pretty cold tolerant, so you don't need to worry if you get a couple more frosts. I typically start planting beets about 60 days before my last frost date.

In the fall, plant your beets as soon as your temperatures begin to drop. Your beets can hang on in freezing weather if you get some frost before they're fully mature. Using frost cloths or cold frames could help you extend your growing season to the end of the year, even into January.

Beets do not mind frost, but they do start to stress a little bit when temperatures rise above 85°F.

Where to Grow Beets

You can grow beets in raised garden beds, large containers, or grow bags. Using some type of raised container (instead of growing in the ground) offers better drainage and weed control. Plus, you get to start with great soil from the very beginning. You'll definitely want to grow your beets in a container with a bottom (and drainage holes) if you have larger pests like voles in your area.

Your container should be at least 12 inches deep to accommodate the entire beetroot. Beets grow best in potassium-rich soil. I like to amend the planting area with plenty of compost first to give beets all the nutrients they need to grow nice and juicy.

Root crops like beets can take a while to germinate and grow. Even though I interplant most of my veggies, I prefer to grow beets in a bed all by themselves. If you do want to interplant, consider getting your beets started in the garden first so that their leaves have plenty of time to grow a couple inches tall before the other plants around them take off. Otherwise, you run the risk of those other plants blocking critical sunlight.

How Much Sun Do Beets Need?

Beets prefer at least 6 hours of sunlight on their leaves each day. The plant needs to make and store a lot of energy to be able to form a nice, full root. If you've grown beets before and felt like your crop was taking forever to grow, it could have been a sunlight issue. Another sign of insufficient light would be pulling up a beet with large beet greens on top but a wimpy little root below.

How to Start Beets

Beets are sensitive to being moved, so it's best to direct sow them in the garden when the weather is right. I do know one gardener who successfully transplants her beet seedlings after starting them indoors in winter. But I've had the most success sowing all my roots crops (including radishes, beets, and carrots) directly in the space where they'll grow to maturity.

In addition to saving an entire bed for your beets, you might also sow seeds successively over several weeks. As long as the temperatures remain in the optimal range, you can plant more beets seeds every 1 to 2 weeks during the growing period. That way, you can stretch your beet harvest out longer.

Steps to Sow Beet Seeds

Follow these simple steps to direct sow beet seeds:

Step 1: Soak Beet Seeds

About 24 hours before you intend to plant your seeds, soak them in room-temperature water to help speed up their germination. Water is what wakes the seeds up so they know it's time to grow.

Step 2: Prepare the Planting Area

Use a hori hori or a long trowel to loosen the soil down to about 6 to 8 inches across the planting area. Break up large soil clumps and remove pebbles, weeds, and plant debris. That way, your beets can expand without encountering any obstacles. Once the soil is nice and loose, add a fresh 2- to 3-inch layer of compost. Go over the soil surface with a little hand rake and then press it flat with your trowel or hori hori. 

Step 3: Space Beet Seeds 4 Fingers Apart

Beets seeds are much larger than carrot seeds, which makes them easy to handle. I like to sow each seed 4 fingers apart and half an inch deep. Wait until you've sown all your seeds before you cover them up with a light layer of soil or compost.

Pro Tip: A key to having success in the garden is not burying your seeds too deeply. Once the seed has burst open, the little plant is ready to find sunlight so it can grow to the next level; you don't want it to get stuck in the dirt and never find its way to the surface.

Step 4: Water the Seeds In

You'll need to water every day or every other day for 2 to 3 weeks after sowing seeds. Surface watering is ideal to keep the bed moist but not soggy. Some gardeners cover the planting area with some burlap to hold in moisture until seeds germinate. Beet seeds typically germinate in 10 to 20 days.

How to Thin Beet Seedlings

Believe it or not, each beet seed is actually a little cluster of two to four seeds (this type of seed is called multigerm). Unfortunately, that requires a second step from you after you've sown your seeds in the garden and given them time to soften and germinate.

About 3 weeks after planting, you'll need to come back out and thin your seedlings so that you only have about 9 per square foot. This will ensure each beet has enough space to grow into a full, round root. To thin your seedlings, simply look for seedlings that have popped up too close together. Pick one of the seedlings to remove, ideally whichever one seems a little more spindly or less hardy than its neighbor. Cut the greens of unwanted plants at soil level with a pair of scissors. Cutting is better than ripping the little plant up and potentially disturbing its neighbor's delicate roots. Bonus: you can eat the young greens you just cut—they're full of nutrients.

Now your beets have plenty of room to develop nice, juicy taproots.

You'll also want to keep the growing area weed-free since root crops are sensitive to competition. Once a week, take time to hand-weed and clear the soil area around each beet of any plant debris like fallen leaves.

How to Care for Growing Beets

If you’re super busy and can't commit a lot of time to tending the garden but you’re hoping to still have a harvest, growing root crops like beets can be the answer. Once planted and thinned, your beet babies can pretty much take care of themselves. The hard part about growing beets is over (unless you're someone who can't stand not knowing what's going on underground)!

You only have to do a couple of tending tasks while you're waiting for beet harvest time. Those tasks include:

Watering Beets

Consistent water after sowing beet seeds is essential to make sure those seeds make it to the seedling stage. During germination, seeds need to swell to the point of bursting, and to get to that point, they must stay wet for days. While the soil doesn’t need to be soaking, it should be a little moist to the touch. If you allow beets to dry out during their germination or early growth period, you can delay the growth of their roots by days or even weeks.

Once the beet greens start to show, beets need about 1 inch of rain or water per week. Water them the same way you do the rest of your vegetable garden. They don't need anything special.

Hilling Around Beet Seedlings

Once your seedlings start forming leaves, take a bit of extra compost and make a small hill around the base of each seedling so that the root is completely covered. This is like a blanket of nutrition and provides extra support for the growing plant. If ever you see part of the underdeveloped root popping above the soil line, add more compost to cover the exposed root.

Fertilizing Beets

When growing root crops, I usually just add a layer of compost at the time of planting and then push more compost around the base of each root throughout the growing season.

If you'd like to apply an organic fertilizer, look for a product with an N-P-K ratio where the second and third numbers (for phosphorus and potassium, respectively) are higher than the first number (for nitrogen). You don't want to add too much nitrogen, or you'll end up with lots of green beet leaves and very small roots.

The best time to apply this fertilizer is when you're planting your beets. Work the fertilizer several inches into the soil to put it right where your developing roots can reach it.

Regulating Soil Temperature for Beets

Ideally, your soil temperature will be between 55 and 75°F for the best beetroot formation. Using garden covers can help you regulate your soil temperature and extend your growing time.

If it's cold out when you first sow beet seeds, you could use frost cloth to keep the soil warm enough to sprout seeds. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could use shade cloth to cool the soil down when you're planting beets in late summer or early fall when it's still a bit too warm. Once the seeds sprout and temperatures decrease a bit, remove the shade cloth and allow the plants to grow in the open air. 

How Long Do Beets Take to Grow?

Beets take anywhere from 65 to 100 plus days to fully form their roots. I've often found that beets take longer to grow to maturity than the seed package says, even when I plant them in a sunny spot, thin them, and give them plenty of nutrients.

Let's look at beets at different stages of growth so you have a better idea what's happening under the soil during that 65- to 90-day period.

30 Days

Beet plants can take 2 to 3 weeks to turn into seedlings, so after 30 days, they haven't had much time to send energy down to the root.

60 Days

Beets will typically more than double their size after another 30 days in the garden. There will also be much more leafy green growth up top. Beets at this stage are totally edible, but they won't store as long as a more mature beet just because they haven't had as much time to toughen their skin.

90 Days

Beets will reach a harvestable size after being in the garden about 90 days.

120 Days

Here's my harvest basket with beets at all different stages. The biggest beets were actually in my garden for 120 days, and they've definitely reached full maturity. Maybe now you have a better understanding why it takes so long to go from a tiny seed to a bulbous mature beet.

How to Harvest Beets

Looking at the beet greens can give you a good idea whether your beets are ready to harvest or not. Typically, the root’s size imitates the growth aboveground. 

The shoulders of the beets will often start poking through the soil when they're ready. If you can't see them, gently brush away a bit of the dirt around the beets to take a peak. Ideally, the shoulders should be about 3 inches in diameter.

Follow these steps to harvest your beets:

STEP ONE

Water the garden well the night before so that the soil will be nice and moist.

STEP TWO

The next morning, use a hori hori or trowel to dig around the base of the beets to loosen the soil up a bit. This prevents the beet leaves from breaking off when you're pulling on them.

STEP THREE

Gently tug on the bottom of the beet greens to pull each root up. Shake your little root treasure to free some of the dirt.

How to Store Beets from the Garden

Rinse your beets in cold water (don't scrub or you'll remove their protective coating) and allow them to dry completely. Trim off the beet greens, leaving just about an inch or so attached.

If you have a root cellar or a basement that stays nice and cool, you can pack your beets in a container with some sand and then keep the lid ajar. They'll keep for up to 2 months this way. Otherwise, your beets will go in your fridge's produce drawer inside a perforated plastic bag.

They'll last a few months before they decline in flavor and consistency. 

Are Beet Greens Edible?

Beet leaves are 100 percent edible and nutritious and delicious! I love to harvest a couple of the outside leaves as my beets are growing. You can basically treat them like Swiss chard or large spinach leaves: sauté them, toss them in salads, or use them in a frittata. Harvesting a couple leaves here and there tells your beet plants to focus on growing large roots. It also gives you a harvest while you're waiting on the roots to form.

Fun fact: beets were originally grown for their leafy tops, not their roots. You'll notice the leaves look a lot like Swiss chard leaves, and that's because they're closely related.

Enjoying the beet leaves is another example of getting to enjoy more of the plant when you grow your own. If you can even find beets with their leaves still attached at the grocery store, they probably look less than appetizing (and that's because they've had to travel a ways to get to you). The leaves actually have tons of nutrients, including vitamins A, C, and K, plus iron. So eat up!

What's the Best Spacing for Beets?

Beets are medium-sized plants, so you can grow about 9 beet plants per square foot.

As you're sowing beet seeds, picture how large a mature beet you might find at the store would be, and then leave at least that much space between each seed. You'll actually want to harvest your beets from the kitchen garden when they're a little smaller that the grocery-store variety (when they're a bit bigger than a golf ball) for the best flavor and quality, but it won't hurt to give your beets a little more room to grow.

What Are Beets Good for?

Beets are a superfood. I mean, just looking at the rich color alone can tell you that you're about to enjoy a bunch of antioxidants.

Beets are in the Amaranthaceae family alongside spinach and Swiss chard, two other super healthy plants. The root, stems, and leaves of the beet plant are all packed with nutrients, but it's the root that's the star. When you eat a root, you enjoy the most nutritious part of the plant. Why? Because this is where the plants store all the vitamins and minerals they need to keep growing.

Beets are low in calories but high in nutrients, including fiber. Studies have linked eating beets to lower blood pressure, higher brain function, and less inflammation. The nitrates in beets improve the efficiency of mitochondria, which produce energy in our cells. That means eating lots of beets can improve your physical performance. It may even help protect you from cancer.

Think of this: When you eat beets that you grew yourself using organic methods, you're enjoying more nutrients than it's possible to get from almost any other source.

Time to Grow Some Beets!

There are few things more delicious than a freshly harvested beet roasted with some salt and olive oil. And few things more nutritious.

I hope you're feeling upbeet about your ability to grow this amazing little vegetable and all the goodness it can bring into your life now!

Sources

• ACS
• New York Times
• PBS
• Today's Dietician