Beets From Farm to Fork
Welcome to my page all about beets! Here you will find information taking you from the farm all the way to your fork. This will include a tried and true recipe, planting, harvesting, and preserving tips for all things beets.
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The best part of raising your own farm-fresh beets is the sweet homegrown taste. You can’t buy that in the grocery store! Speaking of taste, let’s get right to our favorite ways to prepare fresh beets.
Favorite Fresh Beet Recipe
Beets can be eaten raw but are usually roasted or boiled. For raw beets, you would likely want to peel the outer skin and finely grate to add to a salad or use as a colorful garnish. I like pickled beets, but usually, I just roast them like in the recipe below.
Planting Beets
We typically sow the beet seeds directly in our garden according to the directions from the seed provider. I found a new mail-order seed provider called Vegetable Seed Warehouse that has excellent customer service, quality seeds, and speedy delivery. If you just starting out with a brand new garden check out Gardening 101 for tips on getting the ground ready.
Maintenance For Beetroots
Like anything in the garden, beets will flourish when watered and weeded. Beet seeds are tiny and it’s easy to plant them too close to one another, so they will likely need to be thinned once they are about 3 inches tall.
You want the beets to have room to grow and not choke each other out. They should be about 3 inches apart after thinning.
Harvesting Beets
Beets are ready to harvest about 45-65 days after planting when the diameter of the roots are 1-3 inches and they should be deep in color. You do not want to wait too long to harvest beets as they will have a woody taste. As they mature you will mostly see the leafy greens above the ground because beets are root vegetables and grow completely underground. They have to be carefully pulled up by the roots or dug up so you do not damage the vegetables. If the greens look good you can eat those too! Beet greens can be used in lettuce wraps or cooked down. They can be used in a similar way that you would enjoy kale, swiss chard, or spinach. Our greens sometimes get attacked by bugs and become good for composting.
Preserving Beets
If you are not prepared to process the beets right away, they can be scrubbed clean, cut the tops off, and refrigerated in a plastic bag for 1-2 weeks. Leave about 1 inch of the greens to make sure the beets don’t bleed during cooking. I typically freeze fresh beets by cleaning them thoroughly, put them in a pot, cover them with water and bring it to a boil. Boil until skins slip off easily; about 15 to 25 minutes depending on size. Cool just enough to handle without burning yourself, then remove skins, and trim off stems and roots. They can be sliced or halved and put in freezer bags, or if you have a pressure canner you could can them at this point. I have even pickled them before, but we prefer freezing. I have also have filled freezer bags with roasted beets and they taste the same as the day we roasted them fresh.
Check out this heart beet!
Blog Posts about Hobby Farming
Check out the blog for more information about what’s new at Barton Craft & Barn including the following post about our hobby farming experiences.
Failure to Thrive
There are affiliate links in this post. I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. The garden is associated with so many life lessons, I’ll share one here about failing to thrive. Working in the garden, which I will admit was not always my favorite task, has become a…
What is Hobby Farming?
What is hobby farming? The pros and cons of having a hobby farm. And what is in the mystery box? bartoncraftbarn.com
New Beginnings
We had some new beginnings on the farm this weekend…the ducklings are here! Is there anything cuter than baby ducks? These sweet ducklings arrived yesterday, all the way from California! We love them already! The kids are still working on names, but they have already claimed a favorite. They are determined to bond with them…
Just Getting Started Gardening?
I put together a list of my top garden tools to help the newbie get the needed gardening essentials. If you are getting started gardening, or want to be more prepared this season, check out the printable in my free resource library for my favorite garden tools to get your gardening on. Hope you enjoy!
