Thinning Beets?

Last year I grew some big beets, but had many more that were crowded and very small. I made a note to "thin" beets in the future.

I think most beet seeds grow several plants in a cluster. Now my beets are about 4" high, and most of them are clusters of 8-12 stalks and leaves coming out of the ground. I'm sure those are multiple plants and I'd like to thin each cluster down to one. It's pretty hard to tell what's just one plant with one root - how do you thin them?

Ozark - this isn't going to be of much help to you today...

I sowed one beet seed in each 3oz plastic Solo cup and when the seedlings were large enough to handle, I separated them. I was concerned that they would not transplant well seeing as they are a root vegetable, but they grew perfectly fine and we had a great crop of beets.

Sorry, I can't help you with your thinning question, I had the same problem last year and none of the beets made it because they were so crowded.

I would also love some advice about thinning beets. This is my first year growing beets and not 1 day after I put the seed down we had a big thunderstorm with some pretty serious downpour and it made the seeds clump up and grow in bunches. My carrots did the same thing. Would it be safer just to get a small scissor and trim a few of the unwanted plants rather than risk pulling up the neighbors with the one I'm thinning?

On a side note about beets: we had a TON of rain a few weeks ago and I have some tiny spots on a few of my beet leaves that look like they could be fungus. Should I just spray with Draconil to be on the safe side or is this something common with beets?

I'm having the same thoughts about my bull's blood beets, the little sprouts seem to be saying 'thin me!!' But I worry I'll hurt them more than help. At any rate, I'm thinking of going out with a baby spoon and some spare time to thin them now before they are undecipherable.

I thought I should probably post a picture of the beets in question that need thinning. That might help get a better idea of how they are clumped together. There are also carrots in patches that are going to need thinning, but I'm unsure how to go about it. I think next year I will start even my root veggies in individual newspaper pots to be spaced out correctly.

The spoon idea worked out well for me today. But my beets are much smaller. Dark here now so I'll take a picture tomorrow. You may want to try it out though. Great picture, beautiful beds!

Thank you Outlaw! That one isn't one of our prettier beds, but it does the job :)

I will have to try the spoon thing today after the kiddos' swim lessons! Thanks!

oyye_vey - the stems and leaves are edible. They taste a little like spinach.

I agree with you - set them into individual pots next year, then thin them while still small. You won't need to use so much seed that way.

Love your garden beds - great idea!

The safest way to thin is with snips or scissors. You can cook the greens... we tried a new recipe with the leaves from my bull's blood beets (which are a beautiful dark maroon).

Sauted onions and garlic. Added some chicken broth, a bit of sugar, a pinch of red pepper flake. Once that was all incorporated, I added the "maroons", and sauteed for about 5 minutes, then added the juice of 1/2 a lemon. Delicious!

I gave half our beet tops to a neighbor, the other half I steamed and froze, except for a few I added to stir fried onions, mushrooms, sweet peppers and garlic, with a splash of balsamic vinegar (I'm allergic to citrus).

Mmmmmmm..... sounds yummy

I just got done weeding and thinning my beets. I've got three 18' rows - Bull's Blood, Chioggia, and Detroit Dark Red.

The thinning went real easy, the crabgrass in the rows not so easy. The beets are about the size of a nickel now, and were mostly in clusters of three. I think the trick is to let them get big enough to see how many there are, then pull the extras out while holding down on the one you want to keep - carefully keeping the tap root of that one intact and in the ground. Then I deep-watered them after thinning. I know if I hadn't thinned them they'd be stunted like most of my beets were last year.

happygirl345 - I printed your recipe and gave it to my wife. She seldom follows recipes exactly, she always wants to fiddle with them - but I know your recipe pointed her in the right direction. Thanks for posting it!

I brought in enough greens and baby beets for us to eat some tomorrow and freeze some for later. I know they'll be good, and when it comes to veggies my job is just to grow 'em and eat 'em.

Yeah, I'm not a recipe girl either... My mother-in-law keeps asking me for recipes of things I cook... and the look I get when I tell her I don't have one! Priceless! I think this tendency is why I prefer gardening to carpentry... not so exacting! (or cooking to baking for that matter...)

I'm the same way, happygirl. I tend to throw things together, add a few spices, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and when it tastes good - I stop!

(I add vinegar to most things 'cause it helps keep my blood sugar in check - I'm a type 2 diabetic.)

I think the best cook operate that way, by instinct - a little bit of that, a little bit of this. That's the way my wife cooks, and the dishes she comes up with are GOOD.

We had the beet greens last night and they were great. As I suspected, she did her own thing in fixing them. She boiled 'em, added some onion and broth and I don't know what all. Whatever she did it turned out real good, and I added some vinegar when I ate them, as I always do with greens.

She chopped up all the beet greens bite-size and we froze a bunch for later. My beets left in the ground are about 3" apart now and weed-free. I'm going to scratch in a side dressing of 10-20-10 fertilizer and mulch the rows with grass clippings. They're already nickel-size and now they've got room to grow - I bet I'll raise some big beets this year.

Ozark - good luck with your beets. Mine have already been harvested and are in the freezer. It was a good spring for them this year - lots of cool weather.

Oh man... I need to get out and really weed the heck out of mine. I'll post pics soon!

I do too Outlaw, I never got around to thinning between swim lessons, VBS and boy scout camp I've been booked, but I did get a picture of the absurdity! I think the soil that we used this year wasn't good for root veggies. Live and learn. Next year we're going to build up the bed and add soil that doesn't get rock hard between waterings... blah.

I'm having the same problem. I'm going to amend the soil with manure next year

To my credit Most of that grass is between my rows.... Lol

We've harvested our beets, 57 days after planting, and today we're boiling, peeling, freezing, and pickling beets - lots of them!

This is the best harvest of beets I've ever raised, and it's because I thinned them in the rows. I found the trick is to let each cluster form bulbs the size of the tip of a little finger, then thin each cluster down to one. On their own, they mostly grow three where each seed was planted and then form stunted beets.

I had three 15' rows with a different variety planted in each row. The harvest was: Chioggia = 30, Detroit Dark Red = 36, Bull's Blood = 21.

The Chioggia beets were BIG - most all tennis-ball size. After boiling to remove the skins they lost their candy-stripes and turned a cream color with red highlights. The flavor is real, real, good and I'll definitely plant Chioggia again.

Detroit Dark Red is the variety I've grown for years, and this time they were real good-size but averaged a little smaller than Chioggia. There weren't any gaps in the rows, though, and we got more of them. I'll grow D.D.R. again, for sure.

Bull's Blood did the poorest - half the size of Chioggia and with many gaps in the rows. Once the tops are cut off, they don't seem any "redder" than Detroit Dark Red, and I don't think I'll plant them next year.

So, we've got lotsa beets to enjoy!

This was my first year planting a vegetable garden, and my biggest mistake was that I seriously over-crowded a lot of my veggies. This was a big issue with my beets since they are a multi-germ seed. I found once the seedlings got to a big enough size I could tell which ones were clumped to the same root. I still missed some though, and ended up pulling a few beets when I started harvesting that were the size of a pencil or small radish. But, I've still gotten some nice beets (despite some heavy leaf borer damage) and made my first batch of borscht last week.

Ozark, thanks for the tip on the Bull's Blood. I was going to try them out but if they're not any redder than Detroit Dark Red, then I'll stick to my DDR's.

I love pickled beets, but my wife doesn't care for them. Last year my beets were stunted because I didn't thin them and I made three or four quarts of pickles out of the little ones (quarter size). I really enjoyed those.

This year I thinned the beet rows, as described, and grew mostly big beets. My wife boiled and peeled all the beets and sliced and froze the big ones. She put all the small beets aside for me to pickle, but there was only enough for one quart jar. Hmmm - that ain't enough!

I've got seeds left over, and I'm going to re-plant two of those 15 foot rows where I grew the beets. Easy enough - I'll pull the mulch aside and scratch some fertilizer in the dirt, and soaker hoses are already in place. When the new beets get a few inches tall, I'll just push the mulch back next to them.

There's plenty of time, this is just the first week of July and beets only take two months. She's got as many beets as she wants in the freezer, so this time I'm not going to thin them. I'll grow a full 30 feet of quarter-size beets and that'll give me a bunch to pickle whole. We'll have some beet greens in Aug./Sept. too!