How to grow beetroot

Beetroot are another easy vegetable to grow in your garden and can be planted (sowed) from now (early May).

They're really delicious and versatile and can be eaten raw in salads, cooked or even pickled if you enjoy doing this!

Beetroot are a great vegetable to plant with kids too, since the seeds are on the larger side and a bit easier to handle.

Here's how to do it ...

• Choose a site or raised bed with soil that has not had any manure added in the past several months - beets like soil that isn't too rich!
• Beets are part of the same family as chard so they can be grown together.

• The day before, put your seeds in a plastic sealable bag with moist paper towels over and underneath them and leave at room temperature - this helps the seeds to germinate before planting so you should have better success.

• Dig over the soil and break up any lumps and even out with a rake.  Add a small handful of general fertiliser (eg Growmore) each few feet squared.
• Mark your rows with string tied to plastic pegs - this makes it easier to see the beetroot seedlings when they come up and to weed around them.
• Plant seeds in rows 1" deep, with rows 12" apart and seeds about 2" from each other in the row.  If the weather is still a little chilly, you can cover with horticultural fleece but remove once it warms up or the seedlings become visible!

• The seeds will take about 2 weeks to come up.  The seeds are actually not single seeds but clusters of seeds so don't be surprised if a couple come up in the same spot!
• When the seedlings are about 1-2" high, thin (remove) the weaker looking ones (careful not to disturb the ones around the one you're keeping) so that you have one seedling every 4". 

• Companion plants:  sage, onion, kholrabi and lettuce