This guide provides a comprehensive approach to growing beets, emphasizing the importance of nitrogen-rich soil, ample sunlight, and consistent moisture for optimal root development and tenderness.
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[Music]
well hello everyone and welcome to
another complete growing guide here on
the mi gardener channel i know you are
going to love this one because it's on
beats and first first let me first start
off by saying i am so sorry that i have
not done a beat growing guide we've had
so many people messaging us saying luke
where's the big growing guy
okay uh check our complete groin guide
list and
i don't know i don't know why i never
did a big growing guide but i'm really
sorry because there's a ton of people
waiting for us to do the beat growing
guide to kind of show them kind of
illuminate the path on how to grow beets
and i
i never had one i could have sworn i had
one so
my apologies to all of you that we're
waiting um but this is going to be a
complete grind got on beats so now if
it's at least if it's too late for you
to start beats this year at least you
got the information for next year um
and uh and one of the things that is fun
about beets i'm starting off is that
like i said
if there's not enough time this year
this time next year and if there's time
next year there's time in the spring
summer and fall next year beets are
something that can be grown all season
long at numerous different stages and
when succession planted that means
planting about every week to two weeks
apart you can have a harvest all season
long of beets beets are so fun to grow
because they are hot they're they're
very heat tolerant they're very cold
tolerant and they really do grow in
almost any weather at least here in
michigan if they get above 100 degrees
they do struggle and some will go to flower
flower
and they won't form as nice of a of a
root but unfortunately that's kind of uh
the nature of the beast when growing in
hot weather is that a lot of your root
crops like radishes and and
turnips and and beets they don't get as
large because they are so stressed from
the heat that they tend to just flower
or focus a lot of their growth on
flowering but if you're in a place like
michigan you can grow all season long
it's an incredible incredible crop to
grow so let's get right into it let's
jump on into it here
beets beets are an awesome crop if you
have if you have not perfect soil
a lot of times people say you know what
type of soil do i need well beets will
grow in almost any type of soil but
having the right type of soil will help
you get
nicer beets
beets will grow in harder clay soil and
in fact a lot of farmers will grow beets
as a kind of a cover crop or a i guess
not really a cover crop but a
secondary crop to help loosen the soil
aerate the soil and they'll still be
able to harvest it and make you know
some some money on on their on their
efforts so uh so beets will grow in
harder clay soil for that reason they'll
help aerate that soil up
in heavier clay soil
but obviously having really loose soil
is going to do a couple things it's
going to help with root development
which is obviously really important root
development is great if you want to get
the tap root nice far down in the soil
help it to stay really healthy drought
tolerant and things like that but also
what it'll help you do is it helps you
keep uniform shape oftentimes we get
pictures of people where their beets are
taller than they are wide and they're
all crazy shaped and things like that
that's because they're having a hard
time because the the the soil is
pressing in around the beet and instead
of allowing the beet to grow out it's
kind of forcing the beet to grow up the
path of least resistance and so if your
soil is very loose and very fluffy
it's going to not have any resistance
and it's really going to do its be able
to do its thing
now what we've gone and done is i've
taken about a one inch layer of compost
from our compost pile
and i put some of that on that's always
a good practice especially if it's your
second crop
even if it's your first crop it's good
to in the spring it's good to
re-mineralize the soil things like that so
so
any time we're planting beets we're
always starting with a fresh slate because
because
that's going to help loosen that soil
it's going to help keep things really
loose give it a lot of organic matter a
lot of water holding capabilities things that
that
are really really important to beat that
we'll get into
another thing that it does is it uh what
it what it really does best is it will
provide lots of nitrogen um and one of
the things that i see most people
not doing well enough when growing beets
is providing enough nitrogen everyone
always says you know my beets they
didn't do anything other than grow
really awesome leaves
that's because you didn't have enough nitrogen
nitrogen
beets are one of the only crops that i
know of that take so much
they require a certain amount of
nitrogen to begin
setting root development and i don't
mean phosphorus often dies gardeners
will load on the phosphorus saying
phosphorus is really good for root
development it's you know and i want i
want bigger roots being bigger beets i'm
going to give them lots of phosphorus
you do not need a lot of phosphorus to
grow beets you don't even need really a
lot of potassium to grow beets you need
to focus on the nitrogen because if you
have enough nitrogen in the soil the
plant is going to grow up in in its
leaves first and the excess energy is
then taken back down to form larger a
larger beat okay
and so it needs a lot of upper relief
growth to create the photosynth the the
photosynthesis from the sun
that then comes back down and stores
into the beet itself if you don't have
enough nitrogen it's going to just form
enough leaves to kind of survive and
it's not going to focus
any energy into the root and you'll find
that your roots are very woody we see so
many times people are like
i i harvested my beets but i almost
broke a tooth biting into them because
they're so hard
that's the problem that's the problem is
they just become really woody and you'll
notice that the beet actually will look
kind of woody on the outside rather
it'll look kind of like a almost like a
i don't know pepper stem or something
it's just super gnarly and woody uh
instead of really tender and soft with a
very gentle skin and a nice shape and so
that's what nitrogen is going to give
you also what we've gone and done is
we've sprinkled about a cup over top of
this oh maybe
maybe
10 square feet or so
and so we sprinkle about a cup of
trifecta over top of this uh 9 maybe 12
square feet
and that is going to give you additional
nitrogen additional phosphorous and
additional potassium as well as trace
minerals and things like that which are
really important to growing beets
beets
the next thing is sunlight before we get
into the actual planting of the beets
which i am using seeds i understand
people don't love that because it's not a
a
it's not a
it's not a fully mature plant to say oh
he knows what he's talking about um it's because
because
i didn't realize i hadn't done a beat
growing guide okay uh take it easy on me but
but
the next thing obviously is sunlight um
sunlight is so important for beets you
can't give them four hours you can't
give them five hours they need full sun
if you're growing them for you know the
the roots or the shoots or the flowers
or the fruits
they need five to eight hours of sun
if you're just growing them for like
leaves and you don't care about the
beets i guess you could probably get
away with around four hours or so
because the leaves are edible and
they're very delicious but
we want the we want the nice big roots
there so we can
so we can enjoy those and those require
lots of sunlight because again it goes
back to what i stated with the nitrogen
aspect is you got to have lots of energy
to form those big those big
bulbish roots and that's that
photosynthesis that is that is created
from the sun so you need lots of
nitrogen to create lots of leaves but if
there's lots of leaves and no sun the
two go hand in hand so you got to have
lots of that
now the final thing before i get into
planting them and spacing them and
things like that is you really need to
make sure you water frequently
so again with the compost it goes hand
in hand a lot of stuff that we do here
goes hand in hand the compost helps
loosen the soil helps aerate the soil
and it gives it lots of nitrogen but it
also what it does is it holds water
having that humus having the you know
that rich
beautiful organic matter i'll show you
close up what our soil looks like so you
have an idea of what yours should look
like as well if you want beets like what
we get which are like the size of apples
they're huge beets
and so uh
uh
what you what you really need to do is
make sure they have lots of moisture
because what will happen is if your
beets dry out either they will not form
a bulb at all because they're just
trying to survive so they really go into
flowering and things like that
or what they'll do
is they will
your beets will uh be very very very tough
tough
again that's another reason why beets
just they don't form a nice tender bulb
they get really woody and that's because
there's not enough water in the in the
soil another thing too is if your beets
dry out go bone dry oftentimes what will
happen is even if you have a really nice
size beat it will crack so many times
even even for us we've had beets crack because
because
the the soil dries out and then the the
bulb itself shrinks too fast and it
can't keep up and then if it gets
re-watered again or something like that
it will um it'll split much like a
tomato will or things like that that
that the skin can't expand and contract
fast enough with uh you know with the
the shrinking or expanding of the fruit itself
itself
no i understand that beets are not fruit
but it's still the same concept so
if you want to prevent the cracking as well
well
keep even soil moisture i cannot stress
that enough
all right so um oh first i want to show
you what our soil looks like here
check this out
it is so awesome
awesome
our soil has little chunks of
little bits of humus punky wood
it's got
organic matter it's already broken down
it's got little twigs and little bits of
sand and kind of a little bit of pebbles
and things like that
this is all makes a very good rich
growing medium that holds water holds on to
to
air it gives places for
for fungus and
animals to call home bacteria will
thrive and notice no matter how much i
crunch it together
it just still breaks apart
that is incredible soil structure right
there that is probably some of the best
soil we've ever had in fact
and so what you want to do when you're planting
planting beets
beets
now i do usually have the so perfect
cedar with me which we've had videos on
that in the past if you don't know what
i'm talking about but i actually left
that up at the cottage so we were
planting up there and i accidentally
forgot it so
unfortunately i've got to use my hands
for this one but
what you want to do
is you want to plant
about every
three to four inches apart i prefer
i prefer i mean i always eyeball i've
done it long enough but yeah it's about
three inches there so um
about three inches for like a high
density planting
but if you're looking for
if you're looking for a little bit a
little bit bigger bulbs
and not as much competition or maybe
you're looking at stretching your
maybe you're looking at stretching your
seeds out
you could you can go you can go four
inches with your spacing and be be
perfectly fine
um the reason why i'm planting two seeds
and not
one seed like
like this
i've stopped doing this see here this is
a very poor method of spacing because
you'll notice
let's say one doesn't sprout right let's
say this one doesn't sprout
what happens is you still are too close here
here
and then you're gonna have taking this
one out and then you're way too far
apart and that's why i'd rather thin a
seedling than to have my spacing all
whacked up and you know have uh
have to go back and in your well you're
you're losing a lot of your productivity
from your bed
so that's why i've started planting just
two seeds
in one hole that way if one doesn't
sprout well that's fine you have to go
back and thin that spot
but it's a lot more
effective at getting
getting the amount of plants that you
need in a given space
as far as soil ph goes
i never worry about when i'm planting
beets what my soil ph is because i don't
do anything with it i just use pure
compost and pure compost is a natural ph buffer
buffer
of seven so
assuming you're planting in pure compost
don't worry about it if you're planting
in like clay soil or something like that
i'd recommend maybe getting a ph test
the reason why i know my plants are
going to do well is because my ph is 7.
but but beets really don't like a ph of
any lower than 5.5 and they don't like
any higher than around a ph of eight so
there's your complete growing guide on
how to grow beets now i do know that
these are not fully mature plants behind
me there's just seeds if you want to see
what they look like when they're fully
mature go check out our beet our beet
harvest video i'll post a link to it in
the description box below because
that'll show you that the methods and
and my you know what i'm talking about
here really do work if you apply them to
your garden so i do hope you enjoyed i
hope you learned something new do
recommend giving this video a thumbs up
and sharing with your friends if you are
uh if you're so inclined to do so but i
would appreciate it and it really does
help this channel grow so as always this
is luke from the mi gardener channel
reminding you to grow big or go home
i'll catch y'all later see ya bye [Music]
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