Beets are the sweethearts of spring and fall. Their leaves and roots are stunningly colorful and deliciously sweet. Generally, beets are easy to grow, but there are a few ways to improve your production. If you struggle with beets or just want to ensure you’re getting the best harvest, here are a few tips for better beets. 

Plus, get information to save seed from your favorite beet varieties!

Get a Soil Test

The biggest issue we see with growing beets is soil pH. They don’t do well in acidic soil. Getting a soil test, or using an at home pH test, is worth it.

Beets thrive when soil pH is between 6.5 and 7.0. If your soil’s pH is below 6, it will decrease your harvest. If the pH is lower than 6, sprinkle wood ash or limestone in the row as you sow your seeds for a quick fix. 

Work on Soil Structure

Beets do best in light loamy soil. Outside of raised beds, this can be hard to find in many parts of the Mid-Atlantic, Appalachia, and Southeast. Adding a couple inches of finished compost to the bed can help beets thrive. 

You can also improve soil structure over time by using mulch, cover crops, and additional compost applications.

Grow Beets During the Right Times

Beets are best suited to spring and fall in the Southeast, because they become tough and stringy during hot weather. We recommend sowing from March through early June and again in early September. 

Sowing beets in deep summer heat is difficult – young seedlings wilt and disappear, and even thick sowings may have only spotty survival. 

For best germination, sow beet seeds 1/2 deep inch spring and then 3/4 inch deep in early fall. Sowing deeper may slow the germination a couple of days, but will keep the seeds cool and moist.

Thin Your Beet Seedlings

For best production, sow beets in rows 12 inches apart. Each beet seed is technically a berry and contains several seeds. When the seedlings have true leaves or reach 2 inches tall, thin them. Thin to 6 plants per foot for fresh beets, 3 plants per foot for beets used for winter storage. You can space plants more closely if you’re growing them exclusively as greens. 

Fun Fact: Until the 1800s, beets were referred to as blood turnips because of their red turnip-like roots. The round and flat-bottomed beets of today are an improved form.

Water Beets Consistently

Beets grow best with consistent irrigation or watering, particularly in hot dry spells. Drought can encourage scab, the same disease seen in potatoes, and brown spots internally from boron deficiency, which is exacerbated by lack of water.

Saving Beet Seeds

Beet seeds are not a crop we recommend for beginners as they are biennial, meaning that they don’t flower and produce seed until their second year. That said, it’s not that difficult to save beet seeds, the biggest hurdle is time.

After beets overwinter, they will bolt or send up a tall stalk to flower and set seed. At a glance, they look a bit like the pigweed or curly dock stalks you may see in your garden. The seeds will form about 6 to 10 weeks after you notice the flower stalk beginning to grow.

The seed will take another several weeks to mature. You can begin harvesting when about 75% of the seed appears brown and dry. You can strip the seeds from the plants by hand or thresh them by walking on a pile of plants.

Then you’ll need to separate the seed from the chaff or other bits of plant material. You can winnow the seed or use a screen like we use. For a small amount of seed, you could also pick them out by hand. 

Lay the seed out on a flat surface or screen for a couple of weeks to dry completely. When they’re fully dry, they should crack and crumble when crushed, not bend or flex. When dry, store them in an airtight container out of direct sunlight. 

Beets may cross with other beet varieties and Swiss chard. To avoid cross-pollination, isolate beets by 1/4 mile. Seed growers who want to produce pure seed should isolate beets by a minimum of 1/2 to 1 mile. 

Learn more about Saving Seed from Biennial Crops.

In the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, we enjoy a fairly long growing season, but fall always creeps up on us fast. In the zone 7a gardens at Southern Exposure, we’re already starting cauliflower for our fall garden. As you’re planning and planting fall crops, these are some things to consider.

Understand Your Timeline

A long growing season means that you can start multiple successions of quick summer crops throughout the summer like zucchini, bush beans, sweet corn, and zinnias. You can also plant cool season crops like cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, and spinach in spring and then again in fall. 

How late you can continue to plant these crops is determined by two factors: your first estimated frost date and the day length.

This first frost date is a hard cut off for frost-tender crops like summer squash, but you have a bit more flexibility with hardy crops like collards and beets. The shortening days in late summer and fall will affect each crop’s days to maturity. 

To calculate how late you can last a crop, you need to take both factors into account. To begin, find your variety’s days to maturity. Then add 14 days if you’re direct sowing or 14 to 28 days for transplanting. This addition accounts for slower growth during the shorter days of autumn. Last, take your total number and count backwards from your first frost date. This is your last possible planting date.

Many cold hardy crops will grow into winter in cold frames, high tunnels, or low tunnels. Just keep in mind that as the temperatures continue to drop and the days get even shorter, their growth will slow or stop. Young cold-hardy crops kept through the winter will begin growing in late winter in spring for and early harvest.

Bed Prep and Summer Cover Crops

If you want to maximize production from your garden, it’s important to pull spring and summer crops when they’re no longer productive. When lettuce bolts, the vine borers overtake the zucchini, and the bean production drops, pull the plants and prep the bed for a new crop or cover crop.

You should also remove any weed and other debris and pull back mulch. Add a couple of inches of finished compost to the bed. 

After preparing the bed, you can plant another crop or a cover crop. Summer cover crops like sunn hemp, buckwheat, and soybeans can revitalize the soil for another vegetable crop later or grow for the rest of the season to help build up organic matter. 

To choose a cover crop, read our post Summer Cover Crops. 

If you’re already plenty busy with summer garden crops like tomatoes and squash, it’s perfectly fine to put empty beds into cover crops for the rest of the season. Building soil for next season is more productive than planting more crops that you don’t have the time or energy to manage.

Selecting Crops

While ‘days to maturity’ is the key feature when selecting fall crops, it’s not the only thing to consider. Some crops have been bred to hand the hot days of summer, the dwindling light of autumn, or the cold snaps of approaching winter.

For example, lettuces like Capitan Bibb and Jericho Romaine lettuce, which were bred for heat tolerance, are a good choice for late summer. Some fall crops like Snowball Self-Blanching Fall Cauliflower will even say it in the name. This variety offers self-wrapping leaves that protect the white curds from heat and sunlight during late summer or early fall. 

Crops bred for cold hardiness like Champion Collards and Gigant Winter Kohlrabi will help you extend your growing season into winter. Quick growing crops like Cherry Belle Radishes allow you to squeeze in a last-minute harvest even with shorter days.

Direct Sowing Crops for Fall

In hot conditions, direct sowing can be tricky, especially with cool weather crops like lettuce, cabbage, carrots, and rutabagas. To have success, you want to keep the soil cool and moist. Here are a few quick tips when direct sowing:

• Use shade cloth.
• Lay boards of cardboard over the soil, but check every day and remove it as soon as they germinate. 
• Water consistently.
• Use overhead watering for crops like carrots, which are sensitive to soil crusting. 

Starting Transplants for Fall

Starting transplants can be easier than direct sowing, because you have more control over the environmental conditions, including moisture level and soil temperature. Cool weather crops like lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and kohlrabi germinate well in relatively cool, moist soil. 

For example, most lettuce germinates best around 75°F but will germinate at temperatures as low as 40°F. Rather than direct sow them or sow them in flats outdoors, we start our fall lettuces indoors and place the flats into the refrigerator for 4 to 6 days. 

If you don’t have space in your fridge, you could try another area that stays cool, like a root cellar. Monitor them; they need light once they germinate!

Use Mulch

When planting and growing in the heat of summer, keeping the soil cool and moist is key for good growth and production. Placing a thick layer of mulch on the soil after watering will help hold the moisture in and insulate the soil. 

You can use wood chips, grass clippings, straw, or old leaves to mulch. Mulch as close to the base of plants as possible, but don’t cover them. Wait to mulch direct sown crops until they’re a couple of inches tall. 

Fertilizing your vegetable garden can encourage plant growth and improve your yields. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as dumping a bag into the soil for magic results. When used improperly, fertilizer can have negative effects on your plants, garden, and the surrounding environment. 

In this blog, we’ll talk about why you may or may not want to use fertilizer in your vegetable garden and how to do so efficiently. We’ll also include a few alternatives.

Always Get a Soil Test

Before you add any amendment to the garden, the best thing you can do is get a soil test. A soil test gives you information about the micro and macronutrients in your garden and your soil pH. This baseline will allow you to choose an appropriate fertilizer.

You don’t want to add fertilizer without testing. If nutrients are already present in your soil in good quantities, adding fertilizer will do more harm than good. Excess nutrients can inhibit plant growth, contribute to pest and disease issues, and reduce your yield. 

Excess nutrients also often run off with rain and irrigation. These nutrients wash into ditches, streams, and eventually other waterways where they can cause dangerous algal blooms. 

What Fertilizer Should I Use?

There is a wide range of fertilizers available to home gardens and knowing which one to select can be tough. Here are a few considerations to make the right choice for your vegetable garden. 

Organic Versus Synthetic Fertilizer

Two main categories of fertilizer are organic and synthetic.

Organic Fertilizer

Organic fertilizers are those derived from natural sources like plant or animal material. You may see organic fertilizers like kelp (a type of seaweed) meal or bone meal. Organic fertilizers are generally available in granules and slowly break down and release into the soil. 

This can be a disadvantage for plants that need a quick boost. However, organic fertilizers are less likely to create nutrient run off. They also can improve soil structure, feed beneficial microbes, and don’t form a crust on the soil like synthetic fertilizers may create.

When looking for organic fertilizer, the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) seal indicates the product can be used on certified organic farms.

Synthetic Fertilizer

Also known as inorganic or chemical fertilizers, these are also derived from natural sources but have been processed and concentrated. Most of these fertilizers are quick-release and water-soluble, meaning that they’re quickly accessible to the plant. However, some are coated to slow the release. 

These fertilizers are immediately available to a plant that needs a quick boost. However, this means that it’s also easy to over-fertilize or burn your plants with them. As they’re water soluble and quick release, these synthetic fertilizers are also much more likely to end up in waterways. 

N-P-K

Beyond synthetic and organic, all fertilizers are marked with three numbers like 4-6-2 or 4-4-4. These numbers refer to key plant macronutrients, Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). The number shows the percent of the bag’s weight that the nutrient makes up.

If you don’t know what ratio your crop needs, no worries. Most companies market their products for specific applications. You can find general fertilizers for vegetable or flower gardens or more specific ones like those for blueberries or tomatoes. If you’re still unsure, you can also Google your crop’s specific needs.

What Plants Should I Fertilize

If you’re going to use fertilizer, it’s best to focus on “heavy feeder” crops that pull a lot of nutrients from the soil. These include: 

• Tomatoes
• Peppers
• Eggplants
• Sweet Corn
• Squash
• Cucumbers
• Potatoes
• Cabbage
• Broccoli

What Plants Don’t Benefit from High-Nitrogen

Nitrogen is essential for plants’ vegetative growth, but some plants need less and are more sensitive to over-fertilizing. These include:

• Root Vegetables (beets, carrots, radishes)
• Legumes (beans, peas, cowpeas)
• Leafy Greens (lettuce, collards, spinach)
• Sweet Potatoes

In high nitrogen soil, root vegetables like beets and tubers like sweet potatoes tend to put on excellent foliar growth at the expense of root and tuber development. This can lead to a smaller harvest or impact quality, leading to roots that are less sweet and nutrient-rich.

Legumes like cowpeas, pole beans, and snap peas all fix nitrogen on their own. They have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria on their root nodes that allow them to covert atmospheric nitrogen into a usable form. Excessive nitrogen caused by over-fertilization can hinder this process and negatively affect the plants’ health. Excess nitrogen may also increase foliage growth and reduce fruit growth. 

When you over-fertilize leafy greens, the plants may put on poor root growth and bolt early, shortening your harvest window. 

This is not to say that these plants don’t benefit from fertilizer, just that you need to be careful with the ratio as they’re sensitive to high nitrogen. 

Different plants require nutrients in different rations. For example, beets, carrots, turnips, and other root vegetables thrive with plenty of phosphorous, which is essential for root development. 

When Should I Fertilize?

For most annual vegetable garden crops, agriculture experts recommend applying granular fertilizer in spring, just before planting. You can incorporate this into the soil and then water it.

Heavy feeders like corn, squash, and tomatoes may also benefit from “side-dressing” or an additional application of fertilizer later in the summer. For corn, side-dress when the plants reach 12 to 24 inches tall. Fruiting plants like tomatoes and squash can benefit from a low nitrogen fertilizer once they begin to flower. Adequate quantities of phosphorous and potassium are ideal for fruit production. 

When applying fertilizer, be sure to follow the product’s instructions. There should be application rates on the package, often indicating how much to apply per thousand feet of garden area. Extension agents or nursery staff can help you work out how much you need for your space if you’re unsure. 

Other Ways to Add Nutrients to Your Garden

Many organic gardeners choose to forgo fertilizer entirely. For some, it isn’t worth the cost and risks. Thankfully, there are plenty of other ways to add nutrients to your garden:

• Make Your Own Compost
• Spring Cover Crops
• Summer Cover Crops
• Fall Cover Crops
• Winter Cover Crops
• Biochar
• Mulch
• Additional Nutrient Sources