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THE first couple of weeks in June are an ideal time to sow beetroot for an autumn harvest.
The soil in all but the coldest gardens will finally have warmed up to the point where seeds germinate quickly and uniformly, and there’s still many weeks of good growing weather ahead.
Apart from starting it too early, the main cause of disappointment with this vegetable is trying to grow it in the wrong soil.
In the right place and at the right time, beetroot isn’t a difficult crop, but it won’t do well in acid soil, ground that doesn’t drain well or very heavy soil.
If that sounds like your veg patch, then you might do better to raise your beets in trough-shaped pots full of peat-free multi-purpose compost.
Perhaps because of their seaside ancestry, beetroots are often said to do best in sandy soil.
I’ve never gardened on sand but find that beets grow quickly and sweetly on ground that’s rich in organic matter, such as compost, leafmould or old manure.
If you can find a sunny row where the soil is deep, open in texture, and dark in colour, you should be fine.
Make an indentation in the soil about half an inch deep, and as long as you need, using a stick, a rake, or your finger.
Fill this mini-trench with water, and when that’s drained place one seed every inch along the bottom of it.
Refill the row with the soil you displaced when making it. If you’re sowing more than one row, put them about 18 inches apart so that you can get in there to do some weeding when the time comes.
If you’re waiting for space to become available on your allotment or the weather isn’t co-operating, you can sow beetroot indoors, in a greenhouse or on a patio or step, in modules or small pots, for planting out when they’re two or three inches tall.
If a lot of seedlings grow, as we hope they will, you’ll need to thin them out once they reach the stage where they’re touching each other.
Gently pull out the excess seedlings, without disturbing the ones you want to keep.
The desired spacing between plants depends on how big the variety you’ve chosen tends to grow, and within those limits how big you want them to grow. As a general guide, thin the beetroots to two or three inches apart for picklers, and five or six inches for full-size roots.
Getting the watering right can be critical with beetroot. Overwatering will cause masses of leaf growth, which looks very handsome, but may be accompanied by small roots.
On the other hand, if you allow the row to get dry, then you’ll probably end up with low yields of woody roots, which are likely to have split when a drought is followed by heavy rain.
I recommend watering really thoroughly once a week during dry spells and otherwise not at all.
You can check out Mat Coward talk about his new gardening book on YouTube here: mstar.link/2LhV8CB.
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