vegetable
Carrot & beet
Roots that live in the ground until you need them. Beets also give you greens.
Sugar, color, and a crop you can leave under mulch into December.
- When to sow
- April 1 and July 15. Keep the seedbed wet for 10 days — carrot seed is slow. Beets are easier.
- Spacing
- Thin carrots to 2 in, beets to 3–4 in. Rows 12 in.
- Days
- 70–80
- Harvest
- Anytime after they have shoulders. Fall crop after frost tastes best.
- Store
- Twist tops (don’t cut beets or they bleed). Pack in barely damp sand at 32–38°F. Or leave in the bed under a foot of leaves and pull as needed until the ground locks.
- Save seed
- Biennials. Store perfect roots, replant in spring. Carrots cross with Queen Anne’s lace — that’s a problem here. Bag umbels.
- Companions
- Onion, rosemary, lettuce. Carrots next to Queen Anne’s lace will make useless hybrids if you save seed.
- Pests
- Deer love beet greens. A low fence. Rust flies are rare if you rotate.
- Danvers and Bolero carrots handle clay better than Nantes.