Beetroot: Harvesting, Freezing, Preserving & Co.

What happens after the beetroot harvest? With these tips you can store and successfully preserve your beetroot.

Who is not happy when they can harvest vegetables, lettuce or fruit in their own garden? Perhaps this year you will have a very special root vegetable in your garden for the first time, for example the beetroot, which is also spelled beetroot or called beetroot. Below are tips on when to harvest beetroot and how to go about harvesting. We also present the various processing options.

If you are still thinking about whether the beetroot should find their way into your garden, then our remarks on will help you Cultivation of beetroot. Be courageous: The cultivation of beetroot requires little care and is also well suited for newcomers to the vegetable garden and raised bed.

Harvesting beetroot correctly: timing and procedure

It takes three to four months from sowing the beetroot seeds to harvest. Beets are just like that Carrots or radish, edible in almost every stage of growth, regardless of the usual harvest time.

Since the beetroot can be sown outdoors from the first frost-free days in late March and April, the beets can also be harvested from the end of July. A fully ripe tuber can be more than the size of a tennis ball. If you want particularly tender and aromatic beetroot vegetables, you can pull the so-called "baby beets" out of the ground four weeks earlier.

Beetroot harvest time

Beetroot can be sown from April to the end of June. The harvest of the ripe tubers then shifts accordingly into late summer or autumn. So when can you harvest beetroot? If you want to store tubers for the winter, they should be sown in June so that they can be harvested in October. The tuber keeps best in the bed. It can stay there longer than the maturation period of three to four months. Basically, the beetroot can linger in the ground up to a temperature of -3 ° C. However, one should bear in mind that the tuber accumulates more water and loses its aroma with increasing age and size.

tip: The tuber often protrudes a little from the ground. So you can decide whether you want to harvest the respective fruit size. If this is not clearly visible, you can carefully lift a plant out of the ground to test it and then decide whether you want to continue harvesting. Due to the digestibility of the beetroot in every stage of growth, this procedure is easily possible and no vegetables are wasted.

If you want to let the beetroot ripen, you should pay attention to when the leaves start to turn yellow: From now on you can harvest. In summary, one can say that the beetroot harvest time extends from summer until well into late autumn.

Tip: If you want to propagate beetroot and harvest seeds for this purpose, you can use a trick: Old varieties in particular can bloom and form seeds in the first year of cultivation if sown very early (March - April) became. Other varieties have to hibernate for a year in order to flower.

Harvesting beets: how to proceed

It is important to lift the tuber undamaged out of the earth. To do this, you carefully use a digging fork to loosen the soil around the beets and then pull them out. The early evening is the ideal time of day. The stems should be twisted off and not cut off to avoid bleeding. If you leave about 3 cm from the stalk on the beet, it can be stored better. For storage, the soil must not be washed off, but only lightly tapped by hand.

Harvest beetroot leaves

Can you eat beetroot leaves? You may have asked yourself this question before during the harvest. The answer is yes: you can not only eat the tubers, but also the young beetroot leaves. These contain many times more vital substances than the tubers. They are most tender at a size of 10 to 12 cm. Of course, not all leaves can be cut off, otherwise the tuber cannot continue to grow. The heart leaves and a few others should remain on the plant. The leaves can be like spinach or Swiss chard further processing.

Store beetroot: in the cellar, in a rented place or in the refrigerator

Those who do not want to process them immediately or otherwise preserve them can store beetroot. The easiest way to store beetroot is in the refrigerator. Wrapped in a damp cloth, the tubers can be stored in the vegetable drawer for a few weeks.

Instead, you can pour about 10 cm of damp sand into a wooden box lined with plastic wrap. This is followed by a layer of undamaged beetroot tubers. But these should not touch. Then another layer of sand. If the box is high enough, you can also store several layers of beetroot in it. It is best to store the box in a dark, cool cellar with high humidity.

Another option is to “rent” the garden. To do this, the beetroot is placed in a sand-filled box, similar to when it is stored in the cellar, which is then placed in a suitable hole in the garden. The walls of the box should be protected from rodents by close-meshed wire. Before the “treasure chest” is covered with earth, a thick layer of straw should be layered on it to protect it from extreme cold. If the weather is frost-free, the rent should be opened and ventilated occasionally.

Preserving beetroot: Prepare it ready to eat

Who doesn't like to use supplies from their own garden outside of harvest time? The juicy, aromatic root vegetable beetroot is particularly suitable for preserving. But caution is advised: the betanin contained in the beetroot tubers is very intense in color. In principle, you should therefore not wear your best clothes during further processing, but instead wear household gloves. With lighter ones Beetroot varieties you don't have to be so careful.

Pickle or boil beetroot

To pickle beetroot, it should first be carefully washed. The tuber is placed in a saucepan and filled with water until it is completely covered. Now bring the water to the boil and cook for about 30 to 40 minutes. Then take the tuber out of the pot and peel it off under running water or quench it briefly, let it cool down and then peel it off.

Now the beet can be placed in whole size or cut into slices or strips. For this purpose, the prepared parts are layered in a glass with other ingredients, such as onions or ginger, and poured hot with any vinegar brew. The jar should be closed immediately. The beetroot can be kept for several months if stored in a cool place.

If you want to boil beetroot, proceed as for pickling. However, the sealed jars are boiled down in a saucepan for about 30 minutes at 100 ° C. If beetroot is preserved in this way, it will keep longer than the pickled vegetables.

Freeze beetroot

Can you freeze beetroot? Yes: just as with pickling or boiling, the beetroot is carefully cleaned and covered with cold water. The water is brought to the boil and the tuber is boiled for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on its size. Then it is removed, quenched and peeled. When it is completely cold, it is cut into strips, cubes or slices or filled as a whole in bags or cans and frozen. This way the vegetables can be kept for a long time. Depending on your needs, you can then process it further at a later point in time.

Use beetroot fresh

Beetroot can be used in a variety of ways in the kitchen. The juicy, aromatic root vegetables can be steamed, fried or made into a soup. You can also conjure up french fries or crispy chips from them. Even raw beetroot is becoming more and more popular as a salad.

Beetroot recipe ideas

There are numerous recipes for beetroot and the uses are extremely varied. Below we would like to share a few ideas with you.

Beetroot Juice

Beetroot juice mixed with apples, carrots and lemon is a very refreshing and healthy delicacy. If you have a juicer, dare to try this special drink and make beetroot juice yourself.

Beetroot soup

Apples, carrots and ginger are also very harmonious partners in a beetroot soup. You can refine the cooked and pureed ingredients with broth, cream and cream cheese.

Beetroot Chips

Here the raw beetroot is washed, peeled and then cut into thin slices or sliced. The slices are placed on a baking sheet, drizzled with oil and sprinkled with salt. At 160 ° C it takes a good half an hour until the chips are ready to be enjoyed.

Beetroot salad

Regardless of whether it is grated raw (peeled beforehand) or cooked and chopped up, every beetroot turns into a delicious salad with the right dressing. Apple pieces and walnuts and a nice balsamic dressing are particularly tasty.

Beetroot fries

Just like with classic potato fries, the peeled tuber is cut into chips-like sticks and cooked in hot frying oil. Then season with salt and pepper.

Beetroot carpaccio

Cook the beetroot in hot water for about 40 minutes. Then chill and peel the beetroot. Slice into thin slices and serve with lamb's lettuce, pears and a light dressing, for example.

In mixed culture, beetroot can be grown well together with garlic, savory, dill and lettuce. If you would like to find out more about good planting partners in the bed, see our special article on Mixed culture many good arguments for a colorfully mixed vegetable patch.