Tips & Tricks for Growing Great Beets from Seed

Hello everybody! I'm getting lots of questions and comments from folks about beets. Why can't I grow them? I'm getting greens but no real root development. Everyone says they're so easy to grow. What am I doing wrong? Because I want everyone to be able to harvest a big beautiful crop of beets, in today's video we're going to cover some of the common issues with growing beets as well as some general guidelines on planting timing, care, and harvest. Now I'll start out by saying I feel like beets are one of those crops that I just kind of lucked out on. They seem to love the mineral content and pH of my soil here in midwestern Ohio. I have few issues with pest and disease and I've been fortunate enough to trial many varieties which thrive in my climate, even with Ohio not being the easiest place to grow cool season crops. I mention this not to brag about my ability to grow beets but only to reiterate a point that sometimes when we hear folks label crops as good for beginners or super easy to grow, it actually has more to do with the environment that we are gardening in than it does our competence as gardeners. So let's start with timing because I think this is probably one of the most important factors for having success with beets. Again, I'm gardening in midwestern Ohio with a last spring frost date of around May 10th and a first fall frost date of approximately October 14th. I've trialed many different planting schedules for beets and have found that sowing around mid-April, about four weeks before my last frost date, for a summer harvest, or anywhere from mid-July to mid-August, about 8 to 12 weeks before the first fall frost, for a fall harvest, works the best here. Beets develop their best color and flavor under cool conditions and bright sun. When beets mature in warmer or hotter weather, they tend to develop less sugar. Ideal growing temperatures are around 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and 50 to 60 at night. I generally wait till my soil has warmed to at least 50 degrees. The optimal germination temperature range is about 50 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Beets will germinate at temperatures as low as 40 and as high as 90. They typically sprout in 5 to 8 days at around 70 degrees but may take 2 to 3 weeks in colder soils. I typically don't direct sow any earlier than early April here, as beet tops, while they can withstand light frost, don't tolerate heavy freeze as well. So they're not quite as cold-hardy as some of my other cool season crops. And normally in the spring, I don't plant any later than about the third week of April. This is because, again, beets tend to lose quality when they mature in warmer weather. But this year is throwing a bit of a wrench in my plans. It is May 1st today and I am on my third sowing of beets, later than I normally would seed these. I put my first plot out on March 30th. A little early, but it was really, really warm. All of those germinated and sprouted and were looking great. But I suspect that a little family of mice got into my planting and nibbled off all my seedlings when they were about less than an inch tall. I tried again on April 11th. It was really, really warm and dry. So I opted for soaking and sprouting my seeds and then planting them. I messed up because I was not around for about a week. I was unable to keep that plot watered. And I believe everything just dried up and died. Here we are now at the beginning of May. We finally got some rainfall here. We desperately needed it. And temperatures are quite a bit cooler, closer to normal. So I am going to plant out another plot of beets today. What I should have done for this last planting on April 11th was use the tactics that I typically do when I'm planting in the summer for a fall harvest. I will often use shade cloth or even place a wooden board over the planting area once I've sown my seeds. This helps keep the soil cooler and retains moisture, encouraging good seed germination. I check under that board every single day and remove it as soon as I see the first sign of little sprouts. Side note, this also works well for carrots. To speed seedling emergence, especially when the weather and the soil is on the drier, warmer side, I soak my seeds anywhere from a few hours to overnight, then pre-sprout the seeds on a damp paper towel. As soon as the seeds have a very small root sprout, I gently plant them in my prepared seed bed. I let these little guys go about a day too long before planting because once those little rootlets start to work their way into the weave of the paper towel, it's easy to damage them. Pre-sprouting really does help speed germination, but make sure to keep the planting area consistently watered until the seedlings are up and growing, or you'll run into the same issue I did. One thing to keep in mind in regards to timing is how photoperiodism comes into play with beets. Photoperiodism is a plant's response to periods of daylight and darkness, and beets are considered a long day crop. This means that they require greater than 12 hours of daylight or less than 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness to produce a flower or bloom. So if beets are regularly experiencing day lengths that are longer than 12 hours, especially if there are additional stressors in their environment—things like lack of nutrition or water, disease or insect pressure, temperatures which are too warm—they will often have a bolting response, whether or not that root has started to size up yet. So if you have often struggled with growing beets in that spring-summer time slot, it may be worth giving a summer planting for fall harvest a try, as here in Ohio, day lengths are starting to drop below that 12-hour mark by the latter part of September. Another factor for successful beets is our soil quality. Beets will grow best with a soil pH of around 6.5 to 7, and will struggle in highly acidic soils. Like most all crops, they'll do best in loose, well-draining soil, high in organic matter. I've tested growing beets in my in-ground beds as compared to planters and containers filled with potting soil and various bagged raised bed mixes, and found that the in-ground plantings vastly outperformed everything else. My theory is that my in-ground beds retain moisture better, stay slightly cooler, and thanks in part to the fact that my native soil is relatively clay-heavy, my in-ground beds are rich in trace minerals that beets love, such as boron. I've also done a lot of work to improve the tilth and organic matter of my soil, utilizing cover cropping and the addition of amendments including compost, manure, and leaf mold. I absolutely believe that we could craft a mix for growing in containers or raised beds that would grow beautiful beets, but I'm here to tell you that the pre-bagged mixes from the big box stores just are not cutting it. If anybody does have a mix that they really, really like for growing beets and other root crops, drop a line in the comments below and let me know because I'd love to test it out. For sunlight requirements, in general full sun or six plus hours of sunlight a day is best. Mine generally receive at least eight hours a day of sunlight, but what I have found here in my climate is that the beets can sometimes benefit from the use of shade cloth. I'll often use the shade cloth temporarily when I have a crop in the summer that's just about ready to harvest, but we're getting really, really warm over 80 degrees regularly with really intense sun, and I'll pop that shade cloth on for about the last two weeks before I'm ready to harvest. I'll also sometimes use shade cloth to cover the planting area just after sowing my seeds, often when I'm planting in the summer for a fall harvest and that soil is very, very warm. I'll use that just until my seedlings are up and getting established. Beets and other root crops can often be grown in partial shade. That's going to be about four to six hours of sunlight a day. Just be aware that sometimes their top growth is going to be a little bit weaker and leggier, and the root development will often take longer than their full sun grown counterparts. That being said, I've heard success stories from folks growing beets in only two hours of direct sunlight a day, where the rest of the day the planting area is getting kind of dappled sun shade situation. So if you're really limited on your sunny spots on your property, I always suggest just planting out a small plot and seeing how crops like this do for you. So once we have our ideal planting spot scouted out, it is time to plant. Generally when I am direct sowing in cool damp spring soils, I plant slightly shallower, about half an inch deep. In warmer, drier summer soils, I plant seeds slightly deeper, about three quarters of an inch. You don't want to plant the too deeply or it may have a hard time germinating. I also like to cover my seed rows with worm castings, or sometimes I'll use my seed starting mix, rather than covering the seed back up with my garden soil. The castings or seed mix are lighter and looser in consistency than my garden soil, tend to not crust over when it dries, and allows the tender new seedlings to emerge more easily. The worm castings in particular provide a wonderful source of nutrients for young plants without the risk of burning them. For transplants, which I don't often do, and I'll talk about that more in a bit, I typically will plant those at the same level that they were growing in the cells or seed starting pots. I generally space beet seeds about one to three inches apart, transplants about three inches apart, and rows spaced at six to twelve inches. You can plant at closer spacing for baby beets, further away for full-size roots. Now unless you're planting a monogerm variety, the wrinkled beet seed ball is multigerm and typically contains two to four viable embryos. Seedlings should be thin to allow for proper root development. Here, one seed was planted per cell, and you can see that in most of these, three to four seedlings have sprouted. I'm snipping the extras so that only one seedling per cell remains. Failure to thin seedlings is one of the most common causes I see of underdeveloped roots. If roots aren't given adequate room to grow and are crowded by their neighbors, they simply will not size up. For direct sown seeds, you can snip off extra seedlings much in the same way I did with those grown in the seed cells. Generally, cutting is advised versus pulling seedlings out of the ground, as at that small size, you risk disturbing the Sometimes I do very gently pull the extra seedlings out and then just firm soil around the roots of the remaining beet plants. These thinnings are a delicious addition to salads and other dishes. I personally often miss my window of thinning before the roots start to develop. The good news is that I can typically pull up the baby-sized beets and enjoy those, which then allows their to fully size up. I also tend to do multiple successive harvests within my beet patches. The first picking tends to free up more space for the remaining roots to really size up nicely. But if you just really hate thinning seedlings, opt for a monogerm variety like Moneda. These have only one viable embryo per seed, so there's much less thinning involved. In addition to thinning out the beets themselves, keeping that plot free of other weeds is well worth the time. This is because any kind of crowding or competition from other especially vigorous weeds is going to create underdevelopment in our beet roots as well. I prefer to mulch my beets with a natural mulch like grass clippings or leaf mulch. Not only does this help to suppress the weeds, but it also helps to keep that soil cooler and soil moisture more consistent, which is very beneficial for the beets. Typically, I'll go in if that's a direct sown plot. I'll come in and mulch once the seedlings are up a couple of inches, and I get close to the seedlings but not right up on and touching them. If I am doing transplants, I mulch pretty much right after transplanting. The one caveat to this is if you have issues with especially slugs, you may want to wait to mulch until the weather has warmed and that soil has dried out a little bit, as slugs really like to hide under mulch and come out and get your plants at night. Transplanting beets is also an option, though it's not something I've found to be necessary in my area, and it's much easier for me to direct sow. If you do opt for transplanting, use a method that encourages air pruning of the seedling roots, and transplant shortly after the first true leaves have appeared and the tap root development has not begun yet. If you wait too long to transplant, you may have issues with the root never properly developing, as I did with this transplant test plot. I've read that using soil blocks, paper pot planters, or putting open bottom plug trays on a wire mesh bench can all work well for transplants. Each season I try to test out a new method of transplanting beets. This year I'm trying the open bottom cells on the wire mesh shelf. If I find anything that works better than direct sowing here, I will be sure to let you know. Beets are relatively heavy feeders, but as always, I'm going to encourage everyone to get a soil test done before just applying fertilizer all willy-nilly. I've given my garden soil a lot of TLC, so at this point it's pretty decent with good organic matter content. But even then, I like to add a layer of compost or composted manure to my beds every spring before planting. Also, if I remember to do so, which I often do not, I will side dress my beets once root development begins with an all-natural fertilizer. I like root crops alive because it's a naturally derived fertilizer from materials like alfalfa, kelp meal, fish meal, poultry manure, that type of thing, with a low 3-4-3 NPK ratio, as root crops like beets will often benefit from phosphorus and potassium for root development, whereas too much nitrogen will encourage lush top growth at the expense of root development. Great if you want to grow your beets for greens, not so great if you're aiming on harvesting the roots. It also contains a lot of those trace minerals that beets love, such as magnesium, calcium, and boron. So now let's cover a few of the common problems that folks may run into when growing beets. The first is boron deficiency. This may manifest as dying leaves and quirky black areas in your roots. Applying a source of boron to your garden soil can be a preventative measure, but again, please test your soil first. This is because boron deficiency in beets can be caused not only by insufficient soil boron, but also uptake issues caused by things like drought, excessive rainfall, and soil pH levels over 7. Very sandy soils with low levels of organic matter tend to be the ones most often deficient in boron. And if you also notice that some of your brassicas have issues with hollow stem, especially your broccoli and cauliflower, that is likely indicating boron insufficiency. Another nutrient imbalance issue can be caused by excess nitrogen. I mentioned this briefly in the fertilizer section, but it's worth a second look. If you feel like you're doing everything right and your beet foliage looks big and beautiful and lush, but your beet roots don't size up, it's likely you're overdoing the nitrogen. Another issue can be inconsistent soil moisture, both too much or too little. This can restrict root development, inhibit boron uptake, and exacerbate symptoms of scab, a bacterial disease which causes black corky lesions to develop on the roots. Aim for one inch of water per week, and like I mentioned before, you may opt to use natural mulches to help the soil better retain moisture. One of the first signs of both over and under watering is yellowing drooping leaves. Probably the most common issue or complaint I see about beets is undersized or underdeveloped roots. And as I mentioned before, the number one cause tends to be overcrowding, and timing can also play an issue. But other causes may be compacted or rocky soil, nutrient deficiency, especially phosphorus, not enough sun, acidic soil, insufficient moisture, or transplant shock, most often caused by waiting too long to transplant seedlings. And zoning is a final common issue. Zoning is when the interior of the beet root shows distinct rings. Zoning tends to be mostly a cosmetic issue, but something to be aware of is that the same conditions that cause zoning can also cause beets to become woody or corky and low in sugars, which basically makes for a not that pleasant eating experience. The most common conditions include inconsistent moisture, again, and beets that are maturing during temperatures that are too warm. Keep in mind, too, that there are some varieties like Chioggia, which are supposed to show distinct ring coloration in the interior, and this is not a growing deficiency. Insect pressure with beets is going to vary depending on where you are growing. Thankfully, here in my neck of the woods, I don't have a ton of insect pests that bother my beets, but the one that I most commonly hear about is leafminer. The larval stage of spinach and beet leafminer is the most problematic because the larvae burrow between leaf layers and create telltale feeding mines. Leafminer damage can be prevented relatively easily by utilizing well-secured insect netting and making sure to rotate crops. To be effective, I generally recommend having those nets in place as soon as you direct sow or seedlings are planted out. Miners can also be killed by pinching them inside the beet leaves and removing and destroying any affected leaves. Products containing spinosad may also be effective for leafminer control, but it's best applied before the eggs start hatching, usually about mid-spring, depending on where you're growing. We do, however, have quite a few animals who will happily make a snack, especially of the tender young beet greens. These include things like rabbit, deer, and mice like I mentioned earlier. Thankfully, insect netting secured into the ground, just like I mentioned as prevention for leafminer, typically stops or deters most of these animals as well. As far as disease pressure on beets, probably the most common in this area and the only one that I've had to deal with is Cercospora leaf spot, which favors warm, humid conditions. Cercospora tends to be an issue for me more in the late summer and fall time slot. It causes lesions on the foliage and it's typically nothing more than a cosmetic issue for me, but if it becomes severe enough, foliar die-off can affect root development. Some preventative measures include avoiding overhead irrigation when you can, ensuring plenty of good air circulation amongst the plants, and removing any weeds that are in the goosefoot family. These include common weeds such as lamb's quarters and pigweed, which can also serve as hosts for the disease, both of which can be eaten and are very nutritionally dense, by the way. Look for resistant beet varieties as well, including Bresco and Amarelli. A Cornell experiment showed bull's blood was the most resistant cultivar in their trials, followed by ruby queen, vulture, and touchstone gold. Copper fungicides can also be applied as a preventative, and if you've had this issue in your garden before, try to avoid planting any crops in this family in the same spot for at least three years. In addition to beets, this is going to include Swiss chard and spinach. Scab can be another disease issue in beets, and this is caused by the same soil-dwelling bacterium that causes scab in potatoes, radishes, carrots, and other root vegetables. It can cause corky spots and lesions in the root itself. Scab isn't an issue that I've seen here specifically, but if you tend to have problems with it, there are a few fairly easy preventative measures that can be taken. Those include, again, ensuring consistent soil moisture, not letting your soil be super saturated and then get really dried out and then saturated again, not following your potato plantings with beets, and also ensuring that all of the organic matter in your soil is fully broken down. So we don't want to be mixing something like an unfinished compost or even like my leaf mulch that I love so much. Don't use those types of things if scab is an ongoing problem in your garden. You will hear me say this about every single garden crop that I talk about, but because I'm a trial manager and I am trialing out different varieties of common garden crops every single year and evaluating them for performance, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. But truly, variety selection matters, and picking a variety that is specifically suited to your specific growing conditions can really make or break your success with growing beets and any other crop for that matter. In addition to some of the specific cultivars that I mentioned already, some that I've had really good luck with include bohan. This variety puts down a very strong taproot which gives it phenomenal stress resistance, and it's a great choice for a beginner or someone who struggles with growing beets. Manolo is also a great stress-resistant choice. Zeppo and unbeatable have done incredibly well in my garden, and I grow both of these on repeat every year in both spring and fall. If you don't tend to like the earthy flavor of beets, opt for a gold or white variety. Some of my favorites include amarelli, boldor, and avalanche. Badger flame is also a beautifully unique gold beet with an incredible flavor. And if you grow beets primarily for slicing, taunus is an improved cylindra type with an elongated root that has done really, really well for me. And finally, it's time to harvest our bounty after all of our hard work. We'll harvest mature beetroots about 45 to 65 days after sowing, depending on the variety. I generally prefer quicker to mature varieties to beat the heat in my area. Beets can be harvested early from baby size, when roots are about the size of a ping pong ball or so, up until the time the roots are full sized. For most varieties, that's going to be about three to four inches across. But if weather is getting really warm, I often err on the size of picking them smaller. Once beets have fully sized up, we want to harvest pretty quickly, especially again if the weather is warm. If we leave the mature bulbs in the ground for an extended period of time, they tend to become woody. Remember that the greens can be eaten too. But if you want to harvest greens prior to harvesting the roots, only take about one to two mature leaves per plant, as our roots won't properly form without the greens. For storage, I cut the greens off of my beets immediately after harvest, brush any excess dirt off of the roots, pop them in Ziploc bags, and store them in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator. There are probably other fancier ways of storing beets, but this works really well for me, and my beets typically keep really, really well for at least several months. For even longer term storage, I like to roast, cube, and freeze my beets, pickle them, or make beet kvass. Well, for those of you who have struggled with growing beets in the past, I hope that something that I've mentioned here will help. And as always, if you have additional questions, drop a line in the comments below and let me know. If you found this video helpful, please consider subscribing to my channel, Growfully with Jenna. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.