beetroots really are one of the easiest
things to grow from seed and you will
succeed even if you're a total beginner
Gardener they're like radishes you can
just direct sew them into the ground or
you can sow them to a gutter pipe which
is what we tend to do but you just want
a fine tilt and then you just transplant
them out or direct sow them quite
densely packed and then you can thin
them and eat your thinnings but
basically you just don't want to start
harvesting at the end of the row and
just carry on willy-nilly because you'll
get lots of different sizes in one row
so just go back to your patch again and
again removing the bigger ones but apart
from that they don't really need much
water they just don't need any TLC they
just get on and grow themselves and you
can sew them anytime really between
April in the garden and the last sewing
I do is probably about mid-july and then
I'll be picking them and harvesting them
right the way through almost until
Christmas
beetroot are really good in July we
sewed these in sort of late spring and
we actually sewed them into gutter pipes
and then transplanted them straight to
here and I love beetroot in three colors
and that's what makes it look more fun
on the plate and
um and also I make drinks and things out
of beetroot as well so it's lovely
having the three different colors so
this is a variety called kyoja or candy
stripe and when you cut into it you'll
see it's stripy the flesh pink and white
and you can see that from the stem there
now when you're harvesting beetroot you
want to just go through your patch and
have a little rummage and you'll find
the bigger ones are starting to push
themselves slightly out of the ground so
you should be able to see the ones that
are ready to harvest so you don't want
to start at the beginning of the row and
just Harvest down the row because you
will then end up taking really small
ones out which are a bit of a waste
unless you want baby beetroot so you
really want to pick them when they're
about that size and they're really
tender but they're not too small so
you're not wasting them so I'm just
doing there's another big one there
I'll just get a couple more of the pinky
colored one
here's another nice one
there
and just one more I think will be plenty
yeah that's another good one there
oh yeah that's a
almost getting too big but that's still
fine so three of those I mean five of
those and then these are
not quite as big
but again I can just have a rummage
and this one
is the Beautiful
burpees golden
and that you can see is a lovely orange
color
I found another and you can just tell
because they just push themselves a bit
higher than the rest
and then you know that they're
they've got to a good size so I've got
I've got five of those and then finally
I'm going to move on to the
bolt Hardy
purple
oh that's a bit small easy so that's
one of those
that's interesting these are definitely
so at the same time but slower
what I would always do is wash them here
with a tap in the garden into a bucket
and then just Chuck the bucket with the
soil onto the garden rather than
bringing all the soil into the sink so
that you then block your drains and then
the saw just returns straight to the
garden and that's much easier and you
don't waste it but actually these have
got almost no salt on them because it's
been so dry
when it gets wetter in the Autumn you'll
find that
they're a bit
machia and that's a good thing to do but
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
actually use the green as well as the
root in the recipe and I'm just going to
wilt the green down and use it almost
like spinach and I'm going to boil the
roots for about 30 minutes until they're
soft and then I'm going to dress them in
a yogurt and Tahini dressing with a bit
of hazelnut toasted over the top