ABOUT BEETS

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Some main-crop types include the ever-popular Detroit Dark Red (60 days), which adapts well to various regions and is great for freezing, canning or storing. (Many of the new hybrids are improved Detroit types.) Long Season (78 to 80 days) has very tasty leaves and roughlooking but tender, sweet roots, which are excellent for storage. Then there are baby beets, developed especially for canning whole, such as Little Ball (56 days), whose roots stay small (about one and a half inches) even as they age.

When and How to Plant

Beta vulgaris is a biennial that's grown as an annual. Classed as a cool-weather crop, beets obtain their greatest growth when temperatures average around 60° to 65 ° F. Yet, they are fairly heat tolerant. However, if you live where summers are extremely hot, use beets as a spring, fall or winter crop, timing your plantings so they don't mature during the hottest weather.

In most parts of the country, sow the seeds outdoors from two to four weeks before the average date of the last frost, but not before the soil has warmed above 40'F. (Beets are quite hardy and can withstand frosts but not heavy freezes.) To extend the beet season, make successive plantings every three weeks until midsummer. For an autumn crop, plant about 10 weeks before the first fall frost.

Beets transplant well, so in areas with short growing seasons you can start seeds indoors about four weeks before it's time to set them out in the garden.

While beets will tolerate partial shade, they prefer a location with full sun, and, like any other root crop, beets need a loose, well-worked, well-drained soil free of rocks and clods and rich in well-rotted organic matter. Be sure, also, to supply plenty of potassium by working in wood ashes. Don't, however, plant in any area that's been freshly manured, as this can produce forked roots. Ideally, the pH should be 6.5. A too-acid soil will stunt the crop's growth and can also prevent beets from absorbing boron--a deficiency that will show up as black, bitter-tasting spots, brown hearts or lack of growth. Have the soil tested for both its pH and trace minerals, and if it's too acidic, add lime. If your plot is deficient in boron, sprinkle one to one and a half tablespoons of household borax per 100 feet of row.

Before planting, particularly in warm weather, soak the seeds for 12 hours to encourage germination, which generally takes from seven to 14 days unless the weather turns cold. Each seed is actually a small ball of seeds, or "fruit," that will produce four to six seedlings. (A few varieties now come in a fragmented seed, known as a monogerm, which produces only one seedling instead of a cluster, thus eliminating a lot of thinning.)

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