Beets

Easy-to- grow beets do double duty in the vegetable garden—both their roots and leaves are edible. Largely pest-free and frost-tolerant, the first crop of beets will already have been harvested by most Canadian gardeners, but these sweet, colourful root vegetables continue to grow well until daytime temperatures consistently exceed 27°C. Once the hottest part of the summer has passed, beets are once again good to go. Like beans, during late summer, sow seed deeper (three centimetres deep, rather than one centimetre in spring) to avoid hot, dry conditions at the soil surface. Sow your final crop about 55 days before your region’s usual late autumn hard frost date. Once the roots begin to push above the soil surface, check their diameter by brushing away the surrounding soil. Harvest beets when they’re about five centimetres in diameter (larger roots quickly get fibrous and stringy).