Beet (Beta vulgaris) is a biennial spontaneous plant, common on the Mediterranean coast. Table beet varieties have red roots, more or less dark. They are eaten cooked, in appetizers or salads, mixed with lamb's lettuce and lettuce.

They are also excellent eaten raw, cut like a carrot and seasoned with spring onion. In other countries, the leaves are used when they do not have other leafy vegetables; its preparation is done as if they were spinach.

Culture:

Beet prefers humid and mild climates, it does not tolerate prolonged periods of drought (this increases fibrousness) and irrigation is very convenient for it.

Best results are achieved in fertile soils of medium consistency, but it does well in most gardens, well mulched and heavily manured, well in advance of planting; recent manure and the addition of straw-colored manures produce broken roots.

The thinning of the plants, the binaries and the irrigation are the only cultural care that must be foreseen, with the eventual phytosanitary treatments that have to be carried out.

The first sowings produce from the end of June. The uprooting of the roots is easy for the round variety, requiring lifting the ground with the shovel in the elongated root varieties. From sowing to harvesting, an average of three or four and a half months elapse; It is useful to know the duration of the crop to determine the sowing date, so that we can take advantage of the roots at their moment of maximum quality (this is lost if it remains in the soil for too long).

Multiplication:

The glomeruli that serve as seeds contain many germs, producing a group of very many seedlings. They are sown in 3 cm furrows. deep separated about 30 centimeters.

It should be thinned as soon as possible after sprouting and leaving the plants about 15-18 centimeters apart within each row. Sowing begins in March and can last until August; the last sowings must correspond to short-cycle varieties so that their vegetative cycle is reached before the winter shutdown.

horticultural use