 Beats or beetroot are a staple of my vegetable garden. I love them roasted with oregano and a grind of the salt mill, just delicious. They're very easy to grow from seed and you won't have to wait long until harvest time. In this video we'll show you every stage of the process so you can harvest perfect beats every time. Beats can be grown in containers of quality potting soil but for best results grow them in well prepared soil that has been raked to a fine tillth. Beats need a sunny, open position and moist fertile soil conditions. There are lots of types available if you're a beginner look out for bolt resistant varieties which are less likely to produce flowering stems rather than the tasty roots in hot summers. For the adventurous there are many interesting colors. Varieties with concentric rings such as ciogia look particularly impressive in salads. So seeds outdoors from mid spring until the middle of summer. You can sow a couple of weeks earlier by using crop protection or a greenhouse, either by growing them in greenhouse borders or by sewing into trays or pots to plant out once temperatures outside of improved. In areas with scorching summers you'll want to avoid growing them in the hottest months but you may be able to squeeze in a full crop. You can use our garden planner to work out exactly when to start sewing beats in your area. The software uses your location to adjust sewing dates accordingly. Just click on the plant list to the to companies your plan to find out exactly when you can expect a sow and harvest. If you add a cloche, hoop house or row cover to your beats, the dates in the plant list will automatically adjust to take into account the additional warmth. To sow, first mark out seed drills into prepared soil. You can use a long handle tool to make depressions into raked soil like this or for shorter rows simply use a hand trowel to create your drills. These should be about an inch or two centimeters deep with subsequent rows spaced one foot or 30 centimeters apart. The seeds are quite big and nobbly which makes them very easy to sow. Unlike other crops, beats seeds are actually clumps of individual seeds so you'll often get several sprouts from each one. Simply drop the seeds into the drill so that they are about one or two inches apart that's two to five centimeters. There's no need to be too precise with this as you can always remove excess seedlings once they've germinated. Now cover the seeds back over, patting the soil back down with the palm of your hand or the back of a rake. Don't forget to label your rows. You can also sow seeds into module trays of potting soil. So two or three seeds into each cell then cover with potting soil and water. Keep the potting soil moist as the seeds germinate and grow on into young seedlings. Growing in module trays allows plants to be set in place at their final spacings and is great for early crops started off undercover. Module grown seedlings should be planted so that each cluster of seedlings is about eight to ten inches or twenty to twenty five centimeters apart in each direction. Don't worry about thinning the seedlings, the plants will naturally push themselves apart as they grow. Roads of seedlings however should be thinned in stages until they are around four inches or ten centimeters apart within the row. Keep plants watered in dry weather as well as encouraging good even growth this reduces the risk of bolting when plants flower rendering the crop useless. Carefully remove weeds between plants by hand or by using a hoe. Beats can be harvested from about the size of a golf ball up to the size of a tennis ball to harvest, gather the base of the stems and twist the root out of the soil. You can also use a fork to dig them out. Leaves can be twisted off and cooked in the same way as spinach or just snip the leaves off into the compost heap. In areas with mild winters root zone later in the season can be left in the ground to dig up as required. Alternatively store roots in boxes of sand in a cool but frosty place. Enjoy your beets grated into salads, roast some in a little oil with herbs and rock salt or if you're feeling adventurous why not make a warming-bought soup. Topped with a scattering of garden grown dill. Beets really are wonderful, colourful, tasty and packed full of nutrients. If you've grown beets before don't forget to share your own tips for growing them by popping us a comment below. And if you found this video helpful well we've got plenty more how-to videos like this in the pipeline so why not subscribe. I'll catch you next time.