Those Bloody Beetroots..

Not like the Italian electronica and dance music duo. I mean those lovely beets you can grow in your patch.  I just love beetroot - but it always miffs me, what to do with it other than salad or roasted.  Nothing springs to mind that is appertising other than maybe dip. 

I had never grown them and to be honest I found them very easy to grow especially from seedlings as well as seed.  In fact you can also use the seedlings that you need to thin out in salads too, baby beet leaves.. yum.  Pests too leave them alone, but make sure you have your beet covered in soil or mulch, because when they grow they really push up and expose themselves so to speak.. best keep it covered up like a real lady.  Otherwise insects bury in and make holes in your otherwise perfect beets.

Beetroot about 12 weeks old
These are the initial beets I steamed way too long..

For my first time I planted a combination of seedlings, Globe beets brought from my local garden centre and seed I purchased from Diggers Club. My first beets after about 12weeks from seedling were ok, there were a few holes but in all large and healthy looking.  I went to steam them immediately as I wanted to chill them to replicate a salad I like from a restaurant we know, love and work with in Melbourne.  Cafe e' Cuinca...  I had heard they take a while to steam.. indeed they do.  Also when cutting back the leaves leave about 5cms of the stalk so they don't bleed out too much and make loads of mess.

After about and hour or maybe sooo.. sitting there checking them every so often to see how they were going a smell surfaced.. Eww, dinner otherwise was smelling great but the water had all boiled dry in the saucepan.. dam.., everything stunk of some awful smell, I thought the teflon in the pot had burn't dry but no later to discover it was just the smell of the beetroots... and the juices boiled dry.  I had to throw them all out and wait for the day that some more were ready for the picking :( very upset.

So about 3 weeks later another beet has finally grown to size to make the salad I had hoped for. It was delightful, yummy indeed.  I wait to harvest some more and think of some other things to do with them.

My Beetroot salad: Wild Rocket and Mizuna leaves from the patch, drizzled with Olive Oil and Balsamic with crumbled Fetta Cheese

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