The beet goes on...

Just thought I'd share about this amazing plant that I call the "mother beet."

She was transplanted last April or May from a seedling, struggled through the summer until we added shade cloth (many days over 95 degrees F) but then slowly started growing and producing beautiful big leaves.

Since we do not care for Swiss chard and beets are in the same family, I began picking the leaves every few days, using them fresh chopped and sauteed. However, there were so many I ended up blending a bunch of them with water and freezing the mixture in ice cube trays. On days when I was short on time, I would pop a frozen cube or three into soups or stews at the last minute - no cooking time needed, just thawing, so good preservation of nutrients.

This harvesting of leaves continued all the way through January, with mama beet expanding her girth all the while.

Then temperatures dropped, often down to 25 degrees F, and it snowed a few feet and mama beet was buried. The leaves didn't look so great once the snow melted, but a month later, they're coming back to life. Just measured her and her diameter is 7" - I plan to keep harvesting leaves until she tells me she is done, and then we'll see whether the root is still edible and how much she weighs... stay tuned!

Johanna,      It would not be unusual in this her second year if mama beet decides to send up a flower spike soon.  Beets naturally hold off flowering the first year and then, especially after the cool of winter, are ready to go forward with flowering, pollination, and seed set.  She may set seed on her own, but most beets are self-sterile and need pollen from another beet for a successful pollination.  Good luck with mama B!

Wow! The lower picture shows that Mama is putting out leaves at multiple growing points - I don't believe I've seen that before myself, although I don't grow many beets.

I suspect that with the heat you describe, the root will be woody and not much fun to eat, but there's no harm in trying.

Once mama beet sends up the flower stalk will she keep producing or does the stalk need to be cut off before the flowering?

I've had beets with multiple leafing spots like that.  I grow Lutz Winterkeepers so they are a big storage beet.

In their second year they'll send up some tall flower shoots (3-4') and will produce thousands of seeds.  I'm pretty sure the root will be woody and inedible at that point.  I can't remember if they even have many leaves once they're into the flowering phase....

I don't quite follow your question Anne.  The flower stalks are needed for the flowers so don't cut them off if you want seeds.  If you want more leaves I think you'd just need to plant more beets.  Once they start flowering I think that's their sole focus, not more leaves.  But I could be wrong.

That's a pretty special beet you have. I'd let it go to seed since the root is probably pretty gnarly at this point. Even if you don't get viable seed, the tiny flowers are really sweet smelling. At least mine were last summer. The flowering plant can get pretty big so if you go that route, keep that in mind.

Another option would be to cut back any flower stems that appear and keep harvesting the leaves as long as they are edible. I'd be interested in hearing how it goes.

Mike said" I'm pretty sure the root will be woody and inedible at that point.

This might answer my question though I will add:

After beets go to seed does it still make leaves since that OP wants leaves?

I was thinking similar to onions.  Dear hubby always rushes out to cut the stalk before the onion flowers to keep the onion edible. (or a similar reason)

The first year my Egyptian walking onions flowered he thought I would cut the stalk before it flowered.  I told him those were not that kind of onion.

Beets don't grow for me. But my experience with turnips may be of help.

Once the flower stalk is 3 inches tall, the bulb has lost paltability. While it hasn't gone woody yet, it has started to gets ummm... alternate hollow and fibrous portions. Very very hard to chew, very unpleasant to eat, even in long cooked soups.

Once turnips send up a flower stalk, the leaves get much smaller on the stalk the higher you look. I have used these leaves too. But I have many turnips, and don't know how they'd do if I took enough from one single plant for a meal. At some point the bottom leaves start to get too bitter. The plant needs the leaves to get energy to produce seeds. I want more seed for the fall sowing. I move on to other greens. Some are naturally bitter, but taste better. It's a different bitter.

Anne Miller wrote:

After beets go to seed does it still make leaves since that OP wants leaves?  

Yes, although they are smaller, the leaves of the flowering stalk can still be quite palatable.  From reading and observation, however, once the beet has 'decided' it's time to bolt and flower, trimming back the bolting stalk will only buy you a little bit of time and a few more leaves.  The biennial nature of the plant typically has death of the plant programmed into it after that phase, but if others have been able to keep single plants alive for many years, that would be interesting and a more perennial growth habit.

Thanks to all of you who commented and shared your beet experiences!

The mother beet just started to bolt and I decided to see whether she was still edible rather than saving the seed so I:

chopped off all her leaves (put most of them in containers with water but some were left as chop and drop)
dug her up
cut off the nubs and roots (I counted at least 32 spots that sprouted 4 or more leaves each)
weighed her
sliced her open

She wasn't too difficult to slice, so I figured she hadn't turned woody yet. I cooked a section and found that it is edible - hooray!

Now it's just a matter of figuring out the ways to process all this bounty as this is a lot of beet for two people... Tonight it will be roasted beet, and
tomorrow borscht with sauteed beet leaves. After that I will most likely boil then grate and freeze the root and turn the leaves into frozen cubes...