Why I Plant Beets

Beets are one of my favorite vegetables. I have grown several varieties from dark purple to brilliant red, from yellow to striped when cut. Experience has taught me that a medium-sized red beet is the best for cooking and for canning.

Beets are fun to plant. The seeds are large enough to grip so that they do not fall too thickly in the row, and they are just heavy enough to drop where I want them, rather than blowing to one side on a breeze. Some websites say to soak such tough little seeds overnight, but I have never done that. My beets have germinated well regardless. I plant them about half an inch down from the soil surface and about three inches apart.

Beets are fun to grow. I watch for the first leaves to push above the soil. When I see them, I check on the plants often. After six weeks of checking, I grow bored with looking to see if I can spot the top of a beet protruding above the soil that I have been hoeing. I forget to check. I am always surprised to notice that beets have formed and have become large enough to harvest. This occurs around the two-month mark.

Every part of the beet plant can be eaten and enjoyed. When the leaves are tiny, you can snip a few, leaving the rest to grow the bulbs, and the leaves you have snipped can perk up a salad of lettuce and other leafy delights. If you favor cooked greens with strong flavor, such as Swiss chard, add to your chard pot a few beet leaves when they are somewhat more mature.

I pickle beets to be enjoyed throughout the year. Nothing is more sensational in a winter salad than chunks of pickled beets. Here is a recipe for pickled beets that has received lots of good reviews:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pickled-beets/

In my estimation, recipes for pickled beets call for too many cloves, the taste of which becomes sharper after canning. I suggest cutting back on the cloves somewhat. 

Jars of Newly Canned Beets from My Garden

I like seeing the rows of glass jars filled with the current year’s crop of beets. The typical colors of beets are not typically found anywhere else. The unique redness of the beets stirs my artistic imagination. The burgundy, vermilion, and rose tones of the beets make me dream of macaws fluttering through South American rainforests, tulips thronging beneath a Dutch windmill, or ink paste adhering to a seal made by master painter Henry Li of Blue Heron Arts (http://www.blueheronarts.com/index.php). Such miraculous colors to have come from the soil of my vegetable garden!