Sea Beet seeds anyone?

Hi there,

Beginning Farmer in upstate NY (1000 Islands) here...anyone have sea beet seeds for sale or giveaway? Thanks!

Hi, Colin

Welcome to the forum.

I have seen sea beets mentioned here on the forum.

What are Sea Beets?  Do you have the scientific name?

I asked Mr. Google though he did not know.

Hi Colin,

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there are any sources of sea beet in the US that make seed available to individual growers.   If you have any connections to friends or colleagues along the coastline from Denmark down into the Mediterranean Sea, the estuaries therein are good sources of native sea beet growing wild.  Otherwise, you may want to make a trip to California to see if any of the invasive populations are there to be found:    https://www.calflora.org/app/taxon?crn=11374

Good luck!

PS....  If you have contacts with others living along coastal southern California and they can ID the plant, they may be able to find some seed from last year's stalks.  I can't recall off the top of my head, but sea beet may be 'segregating' for annualism......some will want to flower the same year that you plant them, but others will not flower the first year and you would harvest the root, cellar it overwinter, and replant the root for flowering and seed set in the next year.

These guys are out of stock now, but perhaps next year:  https://kykeonplants.mysimplestore.com/products/beta-vulgaris-ssp-maritima-sea-beet-ex-north-yorkshire-england-30-seeds

It looks like 2 of my sea beet seedlings survived this past winter unprotected by anything but the snow.  I have them in a planting with some seedlings from VT that also survived the winter.  My intent is to let them cross as the VT swiss chard is cold hardier and improved, but they are biennials.  I very much want to try and bring the wild perennial trait back into this line of hardy chard.  At this point I can't even say for sure that the sea beets that survived are perennial, though.  Fingers crossed for some crossing magic to occur :)

I got my sea beet (Betel maritima) plant from plantingjustice.com.   I'm planning on growing it for food and for the seeds, so I may have some seeds available in a year or so.