 1kg 1kg 5kg 1kg ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― T83g,highwater sea fish dish penslavey dvinniga of marMinikl 드�stal on pi Langaren dwarf a lot of deep rich flavours and tastes and sweetness too that you probably haven't known before in Beatre you might have bought so here's a video to show you ways of growing it and to get you all excited about Beatre In this case I'm filling a tray with home made compost that I put through a very rough sieve you could also use any multi purpose compost it doesn't have to be specifically sieve compost the main thing is that there's some drainage capabilities the worst thing for sieves is compost that lies wet and soggy I'm pushing it in because that means I can get a decent amount of compost when compost is light and fluffy it's better to firm it in before sowing or pricking out and that way you've got a nice firm medium which won't all fall apart when you push it out at planting time Beatre is a great stand by in the garden and it's not difficult to grow but sometimes there are issues with sowing the seeds and little birds for example love Beatre seedlings it's a good one to start undercover and it works really well sowing it in trays you can plant it in a small cell and although it's a root vegetable it's not making a tap root so the planting process does not damage the part that we eat it does make the little roots that come out of the Beatre fork a little bit but that's not a problem for the harvest or the eating so I prefer a tray of 40 cells with compost and Beatre seeds are quite big so they're not too difficult to handle and I'm multi sowing on average four seeds per cell each seed may germinate more than one seedling on the other hand some seeds don't germinate at all so I find on average for most seeds give you four plants if by any chance they all come up then it's a time to do a bit of thinning but it works well to aim for four Beatre plants in each cell which one then plants in a clump, unthinned and they all grow together and they like being together with their mates basically it seems they actually seem to grow to grow to better plant it as a clump than a single they have company on the spot and in terms of varieties of Beatre to grow this is winter at the moment it's the first sowing of the year in February under cover not outside yet it's too early but for undercover sowing in February there's only one variety that I know of anyway which is worth sowing at this time of year I've been growing Boltardy now for over 30 years and it's never failed me it's wonderful flavored root lovely red Beatre and the reason it's called Boltardy is because it's hardly to bolting it doesn't bolts which means going to flower or seed if you sow other varieties at this time of year there's always a risk that they will bolt and go to flower before the root is a decent size so that would make the root woody that happens now a little bit of compost in top the seeds are not enormous but they're just big enough that you can put a decent little dressing of compost on there just like that I like covering I'm just going to tamp it down and I'll give this tray a little water before as soon as it's mid-February I'm going to take it in the house and put it on the window so a little label off we go and having sewn the trays I'm giving a light gentle water from above with a fine rose on the can this compost was quite moist so I'm not watering a lot sometimes you might need to water a bit more and then let them drain and put them wherever you want to let them grow basically in this case it's winter so I'm bringing them indoors to the house where they're warmer this is Boltardy Beatre seedlings exactly three weeks after sowing and they've spent the first part of that time 10 days in here on the windowsill then they've been 10 days on my hotbed in the greenhouse and that's I think what's caused these slightly uneven germination where according to the palette shape or that they've been sitting on a palette on the hotbed and different amounts of heat coming through but what we're really looking at here is thinning them a bit because some of these trays have got our cells or other have got too many seedlings in and I want to thin them because for Beatreux to grow successfully you don't actually want too many in a clump four or five is an ideal number and some of these have got six seven even eight or nine and that's definitely worthwhile removing the access because otherwise you get all leaves or not literally but more leaves than root you want always with root vegetables you want a balance of leaf and root development on the other hand we certainly also want the most possible so that's why four is a good number because it means that for every time you planting out you're getting more than one that there I'm just taking out the seedlings this is a very good stage to do it because they haven't got too big and they're not disturbing the others too much so that's ready to go there planting Beatreux so Beatreux does grow well from being the zone in a module tray and the four seeds which I sowed five weeks ago in the greenhouse have been growing nicely into little seedlings I've even had to thin the seedling trays the cells actually because sometimes from four seeds you get six plants so what I'm aiming for is four or five plants in each and each of these little blocks of Beatreux seed, so in five weeks ago are going in as a clump so they will push one another apart as they grow there's many nice things about doing it this way one is that each little action of planting here I'm putting in four or five Beatreux so it's time efficient, hasn't used too much compost to grow in the greenhouse and the Beatreux like it because they're going in with their friends they're not being separated or singled they're all together and they can carry on growing together and swell up as they do and I've put them 14-13-14 inches around 35 centimeters from the row of spinach here so spacing wise these are fairly close but the idea is for example with these Beatreux to harvest them quite small so that's how you can have them a bit closer here we are now in the third week of May glorious summer weather 22 cents a grade 72 Fahrenheit a bit unusual for us but we've had some warmth and it has enabled some growth on the Beatreux and the spinach for that matter you can see that it's quite a jungle here now and the Beatreux have done the wonderful thing they do which is the larger ones growing faster than the smaller ones so at harvest time with multi-zone modules like this you can twist out the biggest one and that allows the remaining routes to grow some more just put a bit of compost up there so there is the first harvest and I can do the same on the next module another large route so it's the same twisting and that means you just take one at a time in this clump there's five altogether actually know the six don't quite know how I manage that I'm going to twist out even a second one from that leaving four and the joyful thing with these Beatreux is you have two harvest if you wish because these leaves are like charred or leaf-beats spinach and very edible and the damage here to this one you can see pecking and that's why I've got this net on it's to keep our local population as far as off these leaves they just happen to love them you might not have this problem every vegetable tends to have a pest and you have to work out what it is and take suitable measures this this bird netting is very simple to lay over the leaves and then just pull back for harvest