- [Narrator] An easy-to-grow vegetable
that is packed with nutrients,
let's look at growing beets or beetroot.
(gentle music)
So we are growing this beet variety called Red Baron,
and this is an excellent beet variety, as you will soon see.
We are starting our seeds in seed-starting cells.
Now, the ideal time to grow beets
is either in spring or in fall.
It's a cool-season crop
that grows very well in cooler temperatures
and does not do very well when the temperatures get hot.
Now, in 22 days you can see
that the beet seedlings have emerged
and you can see a couple of leaves.
And this is a good time to transplant the beets.
Now, you can wait for some more time
till the plants become a little stronger,
but this is a good time to transplant your beets.
We are transplanting our beets onto our raised beds,
and our raised bed has a lot of compost.
We keep adding compost to our raised beds
every three months or so,
and this has really helped us
build the soil of this raised bed.
And as you can see I'm not adding
any organic fertilizer now when planting.
That is because the raised bed already has
a lot of nutrients from the compost that we've been adding.
And the soil is also pretty loose.
Beets grow in loose soil.
And the last time we prepared this raised bed
we also added some sand in the soil,
and that is because beets love sandy soil.
So a little bit of sand added to the soil really helps.
And we are spacing our beets a little further apart
than we spaced it last time we planted beets,
and that is because we are aiming for
slightly larger beet roots this time.
Now, make sure that you choose a sunny spot for your beets.
Beets or beetroot plants require
at least about six hours of sunlight every day,
and they will not grow very well if you plant them in shade.
And here you can see the progress of the plants
30 days since sowing.
They have taken off well and they've developed more leaves,
and the stems are getting stronger now.
And this is something that you will notice,
that as soon as you transplant your beets
they will start growing stronger stems.
And at this stage you can check for insects
like aphids or caterpillars or worms on your beet plants.
I usually just rinse them off if I see them.
And beet greens are a little susceptible
to caterpillars or worms,
but I've not seen a lot of insects attacking beet plants.
They grow pretty well, and do not require a lot of care
as far as insects and diseases go.
Now, at this stage you can start
harvesting your beet greens.
The beet greens are extremely delicious
they actually look very much like Swiss chard,
and the beet is actually related to the Swiss chard plant.
And here you can see that,
although this area receives a little bit of shade,
the beet plants still get about six hours of sunlight a day.
And at this stage you can add a liquid fertilizer,
like a fish-seaweed combination,
and that'll really help strengthen your beet plants.
And you can do this every three to four weeks.
And here you can see the beet roots have formed
and we're beginning our harvest.
And you can see here the beetroot is of quite a good size.
Now, organically-grown beets are not as huge
as you would find in your grocery stores,
but it's still pretty decent sized.
And although these beets are smaller in size,
they're absolutely loaded with flavor,
they're absolutely delicious.
And from one raised bed
where we planted about a dozen beet plants
we got a pretty decent harvest.
And this plant is known as beets,
and it's also known as beetroot,
but beet is actually the plant.
The greens of the plant are also edible,
they are the leaves,
and then the roots of the plant, which are the beet roots,
are also edible and they're very delicious.
And there are a lot of ways you can eat beets.
You can eat them raw, they taste amazing.
You can also chop them up,
you can boil them, you can stir fry them.
We make beetroot soup using the beet roots,
the beet greens, some lentils and some spices,
and it tastes amazing.
Now, if there's too much nitrogen in the soil
you're gonna get a lot of beet greens but less beet roots,
and this is a common problem that a lot of gardeners face,
where the beet plants do not produce big bulbs,
because bulbs require more phosphorus and more potassium.
They do require nitrogen as well.
So if you are in doubt, just use a vegetable fertilizer,
something like the ones they make for tomatoes and peppers.
You can use an organic fertilizer.
And that ensures that you have
enough nutrients in your soil.
So the nitrogen content in the soil will produce more leaves
and then the phosphorus content helps healthier bulbs,
phosphorus and potassium.
So by using a balanced fertilizer
you provide all the nutrients to your plants,
and then the plants take up the nutrients as they need them.
But if you have too much manure
in your raised bed or your soil,
too much manure makes the plant grow larger leaves,
but then you may not see
the beet roots that you're expecting.
Now, some of these beets are quite small,
and it doesn't really matter.
You can see that some of these roots
have not grown that big.
Now, as far as watering goes, you can water your beet plants
according to how hot it is in your area.
Now, Southern California weather is quite hot,
and I was watering my beet plants
about once in three days or so, and that was quite enough.
I got very decently-sized beets.
And overall I've tried different beet varieties
like the Detroit Dark Red,
as well as the Red Baron that you see here.
And you can't go wrong with any beet variety.
They all grow pretty well.
It's just a matter of starting your seeds
and then planting them and taking care of them.
And we were able to harvest a lot of beets.
So all in all, beets are very easy to grow,
very easy to take care of,
and as long as you have
enough nutrients and compost in the soil
you will get decently-sized beetroots.
(gentle music) So there we have it, folks.
That was an episode on growing beets or beetroot.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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Happy gardening.