Thanks David!

DH and I love the greens as well. They're less bitter than any other green I've tried so far besides spinach, and DH doesn't like spinach except raw in salads. I'm growing two kinds this year because the beet greens in the stores are unreliable.

I can't get my DD (14 months old) to eat beets at all yet, but your goat-slaughtering imagery is now making me think that's a good thing.

I love beets roasted in their skins. If they've cooled down I love them sliced in a salad with fresh oranges or grapefruit.

-Francesca

That's great info, David. I never thought to start them in flats. I have an extra flat and some seed, those are going into the coldframe today.

We also love beets, greens and all.

I'll have to ask Grandpa how they stored beets overwinter.

Cheers,
Michelle

Generally you need a root cellar and sand to store beets, onions, potatoes, apples and such. Hardly anyone today uses them, because crispers in fridges are all they know, but before electricity most rural folks keep all their food in root cellars.

Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

I planted beets today. 4 rows as they sell at Farmers Market with nice greens. I see a lot of baby beet greens in the speciality salad mixes now. My husband won't eat the greens and rarely the beets. I have grown Chioga- the striped beet several years and went to plant some today and I didn't have any left! May have to go and buy some more. The Chioga can be sliced and eaten raw in salads. I have never tried that with regular beets though.

My method for storing beets over winterwhich was an experimentÂworked out very well this year, David. When we started getting down to freezing temps overnite, I dumped several big bags of maple leaves on top of my beets, carrots and parsnips, then I put an old sheet over the top of the leaves to keep them from blowing away and weighted it down with bricks to keep it from blowing away, and-------thatÂs all! IÂve gone out three times over winter to dig up some of each. I just rake a section of the leaves back, dig up what I want, make sure thereÂs a good blanket of leaves on top of whatÂs still left, put the sheet back on top, and the rest of them wait to be dug later. Since maple leaves donÂt pack down, they make a great blanket of air! I definitely wouldnÂt use something like cottonwood leaves that would pack together and "slime" everything.

In the past IÂve tried digging them all at once, and then thereÂs always the problem of where to keep them (it wasnÂt that many, but it still filled up the fridge) and that they donÂt keep very long. This year that was no problem at all. Just last week I went out and dug the remaining beets and carrots, and still left a few of the parsnips, but theyÂre going to need to be dug soon too because all three were just barely starting to show signs of new growthÂeven under the THICK blanket of leaves.

One other storage system that works really well for my brother in IllinoisÂand I was gonna do this next year if my "blanket" method didnÂt workÂis to dig them all up, cut all but about an inch of the tops off, and then slowly pack them in a BIG bucket or a tub starting with a layer of dry sand on the bottom, then placing a layer of the beets (carrots), then more dry sand, another layer of beets, etc. When finished the top layer of beets should be completely covered with the sand. Then the whole bucket/tub is stored in an out building or garage that will stay cold but not get too far below freezing for too long. When you need beets, you just dig into the top layer of sand and pull out what you want. A couple times each winter he dumps the whole thing out to pull out any that might start to rot or go bad in any way, and then he re-layers them again. What always surprised me was that they donÂt start dehydrating, and IÂm not sure if or how much difference the dry climate out here might make. If you ever decide to try it, itÂs important to start with dry sand. Then, when you get to dumping the whole thing out to redo them, youÂll find the sand is quite damp from moisture that has migrated into it from the veggies. When theyÂre re-packed, you use the same sand, which is, then, damp.

The only possible drawback to storing them outside in the ground would be if theyÂre in a spot where theyÂd be too buried under snow all winter to be able to access them. This winter I suspect you wouldnÂt possibly have been able to get thru to them if they had been in the ground! Last winter I couldnÂt have dug mine if they had been outsideÂbut thatÂs REALLY unusual down here in the lowlands! I guess the other possible problem would beÂsince you guys all have such big gardensÂif itÂs just simply too big an area to cover. But with a little planning, you might be able to keep the ones you wanted to store in the ground in a more localized area. I REALLY liked the fresh-dug flavor they had when being stored in the ground, and I plan to keep doing it that way.

How do you roast yours? Do you do it with the skins on and then slip them off, or do you peel them and then roast them somehow. IÂve got a bunch in my fridge since I just dug the rest of them, and IÂm always interested in possible new ways to cook them.

Love beets,
Skybird

Skybird, here folks do that blanket / leaf / insulated thing with carrots, and I see no reason why it wouldn't work with beets as well - or some variation on that sand method, I'll see what I can do this coming fall. My sand stash got used up this past winter on the ice, after one too many delivery guys did aerial loops, landing with all 4 paws in the air.

Re roasting beets, I peel them first if they're big enough, but if they're small, I usually just scrub off the dirt and rootlets, roast them, and just eat the entire thing. Depending on size, 350º at 45 min - 60 min, they just start to brown at the edges.

I was served a salad this past summer with raw grated Chioga beets and tinned pineapple. Better than it sounds.....

I am not qualified to discuss beets, since the only ones I have ever tasted are those nasty tasting pickled ones in a jar. I did want to comment about the inground storage idea that Skybird brought up. In the fall I put a double layer of row cover over the veggie patch to protect the late sowing of lettuce and spinach that I put in. When the snow first melted and I lifted the cover, I was amazed at how much green I saw. Some of the carrot tops still had some green on them. Well a few days ago, I lifted the cover again, and was shocked to find very little green left. After looking a little closer, I found cutworms, close to 20 of them. They had taken the tops off of the leftover carrots, the parsley was separated from its roots, the lettuce was dying and covered with the little buggers, and the only thing relatively untouched was the spinach. So I went ahead and dug up the carrots, and found small worm holes in most of them. I don't think that part was done by the cutworms, so some other pest had found my stash as well : (

I guess the lesson for me here, is to harvest whatever is left as soon as the snow melts, or there won't be anything left. After cleaning up the mess I found, I guess I am surprised that the layers of leaves that Skybird used, didn't attract more pests.

So what does a real beet taste like anyway?

Bonnie

I think the difference between a store beet and a fresh garden beet is about the same as a store carrot and a fresh garden carrot. Day and Night.

I'm busy hauling compost and pottering around the not-as-muddy garden parts, and I tried to find my carrots that were left from last year - nada / zip. In the onion bed, I'd pulled up anything that was useful last fall, and some of the ones that the bulb hadn't formed well (I had a whole lotta onions) I just tossed on the ground. Three months of lying there exposed on the surface and covered in snow, they're shooting greens.

Skybird, I take big beets, trim off the greens and roast them without peeling first, then push them out of the skins after they've cooked. So I guess you can do them either way.

Bonnie, if you're comparing to canned a roasted beet tastes sweet but not pickled or slimy, with a good al dente feel when you bite in. I've only had store-bought or farmer's market beets, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they taste fresh from the ground.

I'm very, very fond of baby beets with the greens.

Large beets leave me a little less passionate and I've never tried to store them for Winter other than in the fridge. But, I'm wondering if my approach to dahlia storage wouldn't work just as well for the beets - plastic shopping bags of peat moss with a few roots in each. The bags go into the coldest part of the basement. I see on the internet that Cornell U recommends peat for vegetable Winter storage.

I've just checked, the dahlias show no changes from what they looked like when they went down there in October.

digitS'