Phoenix Bird

SAVING SEEDS - BEETS

By: Ron
The One Who Walks Two Paths

Beets are biennials. They produce leaves and roots the first year, and after over-wintering produce flower stalks the second year.

To save seeds from your beets, plant seeds near the end of July. What you are striving for is to have beet roots 1-3 inches in diameter in the fall. You only need about two square feet of space in your garden for this. As the beets grow thin out all plants with undesirable traits such as poor leaf structure, small size and so on. You want to be left with about 6-8 of the best beets from this area.

Now there is two ways to proceed. You can either cut the tops off to within 1 inch of the tops and bury them in several feet of mulch, or you can harvest the beets and cut the tops off leaving 1 inch of the leaf stem. Then place the roots in a box of sand or shavings; mix some barely damp sand or shavings with equal amounts of dry and cover your roots. Place in the root cellar for the winter.

As soon as the soil can be worked in the spring plant your beet roots, barely covering the top, about 2 feet apart. The flower stalks can get up to five foot tall so give them plenty of space.

Now watch the plant closely and as soon as you see the seed pods (look like small balls ) start to brown , it is time to cut them off and place them in a small bucket. Keep doing this until you have harvested the majority of the seeds, then cut the top off hang upside down to dry. Dig the root and place in the compost pile.

Now roll the seed balls between your hands to release the seed, then separate the seed from the chaff. Label and store. The seed remains viable for 4 years.

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