Life's Bounty

My Lifestyle Blog

  • Home
  • Travel
    • General
      • Armchair Inspiration
      • Travel Tips
    • Africa & Middle East
      • Morocco
      • Dubai
      • Egypt
      • Jordan
    • Asia
      • Borneo
      • China
      • Hong Kong
      • India
      • Nepal & Bhutan
        • Bhutan
        • Nepal
      • Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia
        • Cambodia
        • Laos
        • Thailand
        • Vietnam
    • Australasia & Pacific
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
      • Vanuatu
    • Europe
      • Denmark
      • England
      • Greenland
      • Iceland
      • Russia, Belarus and the Baltic States
      • Spain & Portugal
    • Latin America
      • Ecuador & Galapagos
      • Mexico, Guatemala & Belize
      • Peru
    • North America
      • Canada
  • Garden
    • General
    • Maintenance
    • Plants
  • Kitchen
    • Recipes
    • Drinks
    • Equipment
    • Preserving Methods
  • Craftroom
    • Bath & Beauty
    • Cards
    • Featured Artists
    • Jewellery
    • Other crafts
    • Powertex
  • Gift Ideas
  • About Me

Growing and Enjoying Beetroot

February 4, 2015 By sue Leave a Comment

Many New Zealanders say that a burger is just not a burger without a slice of beetroot in it, and that a summer salad is not complete without beetroot.  Generally they are talking about canned beetroot and I could never see what the fuss was about.  But now having grown my own beetroot and tried it in many different ways, I am much more of a convert.

Beetroot (or beets as they are called in the US) grow easily from seed if you take care to control the slugs.  Sometimes I grow them from seed, particularly the delicious baby beets, and other times I just buy the seedlings (such as when I am planting up my veggie garden for summer).  You can grow them in neat rows or just plant them in a patch like I do.  If it is just a small patch then you can grow them much more closely together than it says on the packet. Pick some baby ones early on to thin the patch out so you can get some bigger ones later on.  They come in all shapes and sizes – this year I am growing cylindrical ones.


The whole of the beet plant is edible and very nutritious (and not to mention decorative with the lovely red colour).  You can use the leaves just as you would spinach: using the baby leaves in salads and cooking the bigger leaves.  The root can also be eaten raw or cooked.  Baby beets are delicious roasted.  You can juice beetroots (I would mix it with carrot and apple to start with).  You can of course pickle or preserve them or make relish or chutney.


One of my favourite salads is to grate raw beetroot and carrot together, squeeze orange juice over it and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.  Beetroot, chickpea and feta salad is another visually delightful and tasty salad.

Beetroot and carrot salad
Beetroot, chickpea and feta salad

Be warned that the red colour in beetroot (betacyanin) is not broken down effectively by everyone’s digestive systems so it can be somewhat disturbing to discover you have red urine and/or faeces the next day.  This happened to me the first time just as I was about to go for a job interview and I didn’t know what was happening!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Garden Tagged With: Beetroot, Vegetables

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Life’s Bounty is about all the things I enjoy experiencing, creating, and sharing. Join me as I travel in search of new experiences; coax more produce from my backyard in Auckland, New Zealand and preserve the harvested bounty; and try my hand at making anything from cider to jewellery to cards to gift packs of soap.
Adventure Tours Australia
Peregrine Adventures AU

Connect with me

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

Sign up for weekly updates

Categories

Tags

Apple Arctic Armchair Inspiration Aubergine Australia Banana Bath and Beauty Berries Bhutan Blueberries Broad Beans Card Techniques Cheese-making China Chutney and Relish Courgette Drinks Edible Flowers Eggplant Feijoas Figs Galapagos Gift Ideas Ginger Greenland Guatemala Herbs Iceland Jams Jellies and Marmalades Jewellery Techniques Lemon Lime Mexico Nepal Preserving Recipe Recipes Russia & Baltic States Sculpture Strawberries Tomato Travel Travel Tips Vegetables Zucchini

Copyright © 2022 Sue from Life's Bounty · Log in

Posting....
 

Loading Comments...