When to Harvest Beetroot Before the Roots Go Woody

Judge by shoulder diameter, not by days

Beetroot pushes the top third of its root above the soil, so unlike a carrot you can see most of what you are judging. Brush the soil away from the crown and measure the widest point. That number, not the calendar, tells you where the crop is.

A root the size of a golf ball, about one and a half inches (4 cm), is already excellent and unusually sweet. A tennis ball, around three inches (7 to 8 cm), is the classic size and the point at which most gardeners should be lifting. Beyond about four inches (10 cm) the flesh starts building fibrous woody rings that no amount of boiling will soften.

Days from sowing are useful only as a prompt to go and look. Most crops are ready between 50 and 70 days, but heat, spacing and water move that by a fortnight either way.

Roots grown fast in steady moisture hold quality at a larger size than roots checked by drought, so two beets of the same diameter can differ inside. Cut one and look.

Pull one and cut it open

Before you commit to lifting a row, take one average plant from the middle of the bed and slice it across. Deep, even color throughout means the crop is at its best. Pale concentric rings alternating with dark ones mean the plant has had an interrupted water supply and the paler rings are the tough ones. A white, dry, corky core means you are already late.

1. Choose a plant from the middle of the row The ends of a row grow in different light and moisture. An average plant from the middle represents the bed; the biggest plant flatters it and makes you lift the rest too early.
2. Cut across, not lengthways A cross section shows the rings clearly. Look for even color with no pale banding and no white fibrous center.
3. Taste a slice raw Raw beetroot at its best is crisp and sweet. If it is dry, chewy or fibrous against the teeth, the whole bed needs lifting now and using rather than storing.
4. Decide the plan for the bed If it is ready, lift over the following one to two weeks, taking the largest first. If it is still small, check again in ten days. Do not lift the whole bed at once unless the weather forces it.

The cost of leaving them too long

Beetroot has no equivalent of a carrot's long, safe hold in the ground. Past its size the root diverts energy into building structural fiber, the sugars concentrate into a heavy earthy taste, and the center becomes woody. That change is one way only.

The other risk of delay is splitting. A large root with a hardened skin, hit by heavy rain after a dry spell, splits lengthways within a day. A split beetroot is edible immediately but will not keep and rots from the crack, so if a wet spell is forecast and your roots are at size, lift them beforehand.

A crop that has begun to bolt is a separate case. Once a flower stem rises, the root becomes fibrous within a week or two whatever its size. Lift bolting plants immediately and use them rather than hoping they recover.

Lifting and preparing the roots

How you lift and trim beetroot decides how long it keeps and, oddly, how much color it loses in the pot. The root bleeds from any cut or torn surface, so the aim is to bring it out of the ground intact and to trim it without breaking the skin.

1. Loosen with a fork before pulling Push a fork in four inches (10 cm) clear of the row and ease the soil upwards. Yanking a large beetroot out of dry ground snaps the taproot and the wound bleeds.
2. Grip the stalks low and lift straight Gather the leaf stalks close to the crown and pull upwards with a slight twist. Holding the leaf blades tears them off and leaves the root behind.
3. Twist the tops off, do not cut them flush Leave about an inch (2 to 3 cm) of stalk and twist rather than cut. A flush cut across the crown bleeds and the root loses color and keeps badly.
4. Leave the taproot on Do not trim the thin tail. It is another route for the root to bleed from. Trim it after cooking, not before storing.
5. Brush the soil off, do not wash Rub the dry soil off with your hands or a soft brush. Washed roots go moldy in store. Wash only what you are cooking that day.

The leaves are half the crop

The tops that come off at harvest are a vegetable in their own right, closely related to chard and used the same way. Young leaves are a salad green; older leaves and their colored stalks are better wilted, steamed or stir fried, with the stalks given a couple of minutes' head start because they take longer to soften.

They do not keep. Separate the leaves from the roots the moment you lift, because leaves left attached pull water out of the root and both go limp. Store the leaves loosely wrapped in the fridge and use them within two or three days, while the roots go into their own store.

Discard leaves that are yellowed or mined by leaf miner larvae, but a few small holes are cosmetic. Leaves from bolted plants are still perfectly good even when the root has gone woody, so there is something to salvage from a bolted row.

Storing the roots

Beetroot stores better than most roots because its skin is thick and it tolerates a humid, cold environment well. The two things that ruin stored beetroot are washing it and letting it dry out. Aim for just above freezing and high humidity, with the roots packed so they are not touching air on all sides.

Where winters are mild, the simplest store is the ground itself: leave the roots in place under a thick straw mulch and lift as needed. Where the ground freezes hard, lift everything before the first hard frost, because a frozen beetroot turns soft and blackens as it thaws.

Beetroot is one of the few vegetables that is best frozen cooked rather than raw. Boil or roast until tender, slip the skins off while warm, cool completely, then pack. Raw frozen beetroot goes unpleasantly soft.

What to record at harvest

Write down the sowing date, the date you lifted, and the diameter of an average root, and you have the growing period for your own garden rather than a packet's guess. Add a line on whether the flesh was evenly colored or ringed. Ringed flesh always traces back to a dry spell, and next year those notes will tell you which weeks you need to have a watering plan for.