Varieties We Grow

We LOVE beets, so we grow as many as we can. Our favourites are Red Ace (55 days, deep red, tender and resistant to ugly cercospora leaf spot); Rodina (70 days, long cyclindrical slices make uniform-sized pickled beets) and Chiogia (​ 50 days. Red and white concentric rings. Look great when baked & sliced. Good pickling, too.) Another wonderful quality of beets beets is that the whole plant is edible, leaves and all.

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Getting Started

Beets, like all root crops, benefit from being planted in raised beds. Work in a good amount of compost. Make sure the resulting soil in your raised bed has a fine, loamy consistency. (This goes for carrots, too).

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Beets are hardy, so seeds can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked: mid- March in the Metro Vancouver area. If you love beets like we do, you can sow them every two to three weeks, right through August for summer & fall crops. 

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Sow seeds 1 cm (1/2 inch) deep, 5-10 cm (2-4 inches) apart. If you're planting in rows, keep the rows about 30 cm (1 foot) apart. Beet seeds produce multiple seedlings so when they sprout up & are a couple of inches (5 cm) tall, thin the plants to 10 cm (4 inches) apart in the rows. Beets take transplanting quite well, so you can transplant the thinnings to another part of your garden, or you can just eat them— raw, with dirt. When transplanting beet seedlings, be very gentle when you pull out the thinnings. Try to get all the roots.

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Caring for Your Growing Beets

No root crop likes competition from weeds, so weed around your seedlings carefully and consistently. Mulch when the seedlings are well-established and the greens are vigorous. Beets need lots of water in order to form firm & tender roots, so be sure to deep water your plants once a week. ​

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If your beets have been planted in compost-rich, well-drained soil, if they've been weeded attentively and if they've been watered regularly, they should grow to term healthy and pest-free.

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For insurance, try mixing mint leaves in with the mulch you apply to your beets. Don't plant mint in your garden, though: it'll take over. Either use the leaves in a mulch or set out mint plants in pots throughout your garden.

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And remember, keep mulch 3-5 cm (1 to 2 inches) away from the stems of your growing plants.

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Companion Plants for Beets

We plant bush beans, onions and leeks adjacent to beets.

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