Dateline: 10 June 2014
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5:45 AM: It's a cool, damp, misty morning and I have just returned from my garden. In a few minutes I'll have my one cup of coffee for the day. After that I'll walk about 50 feet, out the door of my house, into my small work shop, part of which is sectioned off into a mail-order packaging room. I'll get my orders done for Ricky (the mail-man), who will be here around noon. Later in the day, Beaver (the UPS man), will stop in to pick up packages. These are busy days. Yesterday I worked in my shop until 10:00 at night.
If it clears off and the ground dries up a bit, I will take some time to do some cultivating in my garden. The weeds are small and inconspicuous throughout most of my garden (where there is no plastic mulch) but they have high hopes.
Back in Deliberate Agrarian Snippet #26 and Snippet #27 I explained how I transplanted spinach seedlings from a low-rider tire nursery bed to a raised bed in my garden (we are now eating and juicing the spinach from that bed). I also transplanted kale, romaine lettuce and beets in like manner.
I never transplanted beets until this year. It's a whole new concept for me. I planted three rows in the 30"-wide bed. The rows are spaced 10" apart. The beet seedlings are spaced 4" apart in the row.
It was tedious work to transplant and space the beets. And the plants did not look good for well over a week. I wondered if they were going to die. But every single one survived, and they are now starting to grow green and healthy.
I'll be planting more beets in July for a fall crop. I'll probably transplant again. But instead of transplanting from a tire bed, I think I'll try growing in plug flats. Transplanting each beet with a bit of soil around it will, I'm sure, not be such a shock to the young beets.
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6 comments:
This is good to know, I have had a real problem getting beets to grow from seed in the garden. I never thought about being able to transplant them.
This reminds me that I need to go thin my beets. We're processing our first batch of meat chickens this week and I'm afraid the garden will get neglected.
Off topic from beets and transplanting... after processing 14 chickens by hand yesterday the husband said, "I think we need to invest in a Whiz-bang chicken plucker." Music to my ears!
I love beets but have had a really hard time getting them to grow down here.
If you ever visit, would you mind hauling down a load of that nice, brown, crumbly soil?
We've already canned one batch of beets with another on the way. I also transplant my beets. We roll up small pots from newspaper for our seedlings. I agree, when they are first planted out, it takes them a while to become established and start growing well. But I do like being able to space them out to my liking.
You could probably produce some of the wooden forms used to roll up paper pots in your shop. Could be another Whizbang device....
Fern
I was told I couldn't transplant beets, because they are a root crop. I'm glad to hear someone else is trying, because I did and the plants look beautiful and huge! My variety is a large fodder beet and our season is too short for them to mature unless I start them early inside.
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