by Jennifer Poindexter
Do you love old family recipes? In my house, there’s one family recipe which stands out among all the rest. In fact, if I don’t use this recipe, my family won’t eat the dish. It’s truly that good! The recipe isn’t anything fancy. It’s for pickled beets.
Since my family is such a huge fan of this recipe, beets are a common staple in our garden. Over the years, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes when raising this vegetable. Now, it’s time to pass my mistakes on to you. Maybe it will help you raise this crop without as many hiccups as I experienced.
Here are some common mistakes gardeners make when growing beets.
1. Planting When It Is Too Hot
Beets are a cool weather crop. If you plant when the temperatures are too high, it’s likely the plants won’t grow.
If you desire a thriving beet crop, ensure you plant at the right time. You should also follow a few tips for keeping the soil temperatures low, even when nature throws you a curveball.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You should plant beets when the temperatures are around 60-degrees Fahrenheit. During the day, they can handle temperatures as high as 70-degrees Fahrenheit and as low as 50-degrees Fahrenheit at night.
If nature provides a sudden swing in temperatures, it’s wise to apply a layer of mulch around your beet plants. This will help keep the soil damp and cool.
2. Ignoring Pests and Diseases
There’s no larger cardinal sin, in gardening, than ignoring pests and diseases. These things can spring onto your plants with little warning.
Therefore, it’s vital to pay attention to what’s occurring in your garden. By staying alert to threats, you could save your harvest.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
The most common pests, to impact beets, are cutworms, aphids, armyworms, flea beetles, snails, and slugs. Most of these can be treated with insecticides.
You should also be aware of aster yellows, mosaic virus, and downy mildew when raising this crop. Aster yellows and mosaic virus have no cure. You will need to remove the plants from your garden and avoid composting them. Downy mildew can be treated with a fungicide, less water, and better airflow.
3. Growing in the Wrong Soil
If you have much experience in gardening, you know the type of soil, you plant in, matters to the overall health of your crop.
When planting beets, make sure you understand what type of soil is best for this crop. It could make all the difference in your growing experience.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
Beets need soil which is well-draining and fluffy. This helps the water reach the roots of the plants without leaving them in a consistently soggy state.
If you plant beets in clay or clumpy soil, it will impact the shape of the root. This could cause odd-looking beets or even stop the plant from forming properly. Pick the right soil before planting this vegetable.
4. Watering Incorrectly
Water is a vital part of caring for a plant properly. If you don’t provide water, you can’t expect your beet plants to thrive.
However, you must water the plants adequately. If you don’t apply enough water, the beets will crack.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
Ensure you water your beet plants deeply. Apply more water, fewer days of the week. This will allow the water to reach the roots during the watering process.
However, it will also encourage the plants to dig deeper to reach more water. This creates a stronger root system and should create healthier plants. When the roots receive water, it protects the beets from cracking as well.
5. Planting Too Early
We talked about how beets aren’t fans of warm weather. Yet, they also can’t handle harsh winter temperatures, either.
Therefore, there is a window of time for these plants to be started. Miss the window, and your harvest could suffer.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
Beets should be planted a month before the final frost date. This will allow the plants to germinate but not be harmed by excessive cold temperatures.
If you want to ensure you have a vibrant harvest of beets, plant them slightly before the weather begins to warm. It will ensure they avoid cold temperatures for too long.
6. Providing the Wrong Growing Conditions
I have shared some of the growing conditions for beets. We know they need soil that’s well-draining and fluffy. We also know when beets should, and should not, be planted.
However, there’s more to creating an appropriate growing environment. Try to meet each need of this plant to encourage good health.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You avoid this mistake by understanding what beets need and supply it. Beets should be planted where they’ll receive full sun.
This equates to six or more hours of sunlight. You should also avoid overcrowding. Once the plants sprout, thin them to create two inches of space between each plant. Between light, spacing, soil, and water, you should be able to create an ideal growing space for your beets.
7. Ignoring Weeds
The second cardinal sin of gardening is ignoring weeds. By allowing these unwanted visitors to take over your grow space, you’re allowing harm to come to your plants.
Weeds cause plants to compete for nutrients, block airflow, and provide a place for pests and diseases to hide. Kick them out of your garden as quickly as possible.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
It’s best to avoid weeds by applying a layer of mulch to your beets. As discussed earlier, mulch also helps keep the soil temperatures low.
When you have a rogue weed, pop-up from the mulch, pull it from the ground by hand. This should keep weeds from taking over your gardening area.
8. Harvesting at the Wrong Time
One of the last things you shouldn’t do when growing beets is to harvest them at the wrong time. If you wait too long to harvest, they become brittle and woody.
Be sure you stay on top of this mistake to avoid missing the opportunity to enjoy your harvest. It’s sad when you have healthy and vibrant plants, you’ve worked hard to maintain, and you can’t enjoy their fruits. By understanding when and how to harvest beets, you should be able to avoid this mistake.
How to Avoid this Mistake:
You avoid this mistake by ensuring you don’t miss the window of time for harvest. You can begin harvesting the beet greens at approximately four weeks.
The beets themselves should be harvested approximately two months after planting. Loosen the soil around the plant with a garden fork and remove the beets from the ground.
By harvesting them in a timely and effective manner, you should have a delicious product to enjoy.
Growing beets is an easy process. Many people grow beets because they know they’ll receive a harvest quickly.
However, if you don’t know how to care for beets, or when to harvest them, you could miss your opportunity. Pay attention to your beet plants, and take these tips into consideration, to have an enjoyable crop year after year.
More About Growing Beets
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene18f3.html
https://www.canr.msu.edu/resources/how_to_grow_beets
Hi there thanks for the info. I was kinda hoping for your pickled beet recipe too 😉
August2024, had absolutely beautiful beets coming they were about a foot tall, they did need thinking but I would wait til after a week away… got back home, not one beet had a leaf, the stalks were completely stripped…. Pine Siskins were to blame, they came every morning by the dozens and I at first thought they were feeding on ants or other bugs but nope they like my beet tops the little brats… I’m going to trim up the stalks and I can see a little green way down deep in the center so hopefully they will regrow, the beets are about golf ball size atm, and FYI, my husband staked a plastic owl right in the beet patch, I think that owl had more poop on it than my beet patch hahahaha I have now covered the patch with fine mesh in hopes I can salvage some beets for canning, I just hope the Pine Siskins don’t attack something else in my garden boxes…