Root vegetables
Beetroot
Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris
Timings for your region
Suggested: Moderate · Explained in the glossary
Sow outdoorsearly April – late June
Harvestearly July – late October
Practical tip
Each "seed" is a cluster of several — you always get tufts that need thinning. The young leaves are worth eating.
Origin & history
Beetroot goes back to the sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima), which grows on Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts — which is why it copes with salty and poor soils better than most vegetables. At first only the leaves were used; the thick round root only appeared in Renaissance gardens. Chard, sugar beet and fodder beet are botanically the same species: from the White Silesian Beet, Franz Carl Achard bred the sugar beet that was processed from 1802 onwards in Silesia, in the first beet sugar factory in the world.
Varieties
Round red varieties like “Detroit” or the very early “Ägyptische Plattrunde” are the standard; cylindrical types like “Forono” or “Cylindra” grow half out of the ground and give evenly sized slices. Yellow and white varieties and the ringed “Tonda di Chioggia” taste milder and do not stain your board — though the rings fade on cooking. When buying, look for monogerm varieties such as “Moneta” if thinning annoys you, and for a “bolt-resistant” note if you sow early.
Care
Thin in two passes: roughly at first, then finally to 10 cm once the leaves are the size of your palm — the pulled seedlings go straight to the kitchen as greens. Beetroot is a moderate feeder and needs no fresh manure; a mulch that keeps the soil evenly moist does more for the root than any extra feeding. Hoe shallowly only: the root sits high and is easily nicked.
What can go wrong
The commonest mistake is sowing too early: beetroot is biennial, and two cool weeks below about 5 °C after emergence make it bolt in the same year instead of forming roots — so do not sow before mid-April, or use a variety explicitly sold as bolt-resistant. In warm, wet late summers leaf spot arrives: brown blotches with reddish rims. Generous spacing, morning watering at the base rather than over the foliage, removing the worst leaves and a three- to four-year break keep it in check; do not follow chard or spinach. Brown corky patches inside the root are a boron shortage, typical on heavily limed sandy soil — stop liming there and water evenly.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
Harvest at 6–10 cm across; bigger roots go woody and taste harsh. Twist the leaves off rather than cutting them close and leave the tap root on, or the beet bleeds while cooking — for the same reason it is cooked unpeeled. Packed in damp sand in a cool cellar it keeps for months. The characteristic earthy flavour comes from geosmin; yellow varieties contain less of it and taste milder as a result.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.