Contents
Beetroot is a very useful vegetable, which contains not only B vitamins, but also PP vitamins, ascorbic acid, which in turn is rich in iron, iodine, copper, zinc, and manganese. In order to always have this healthy and tasty vegetable on hand, most gardeners prefer to grow it on their site. How is beet planting done before winter, what are its obvious advantages?
Benefits of winter landing
By eating beets, you can establish the normal functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, and its juice can even block the possible appearance of cancer cells. Also, this amazing root crop can be consumed by those women who are going to have a child in the future, as well as by everyone else, since it is difficult to overestimate the benefits of this vegetable. In the old fashioned way, many gardeners prefer to plant beets in the spring. But today, experts unanimously argue that this root crop can be planted before winter, and such a planting is considered much better. What are the obvious advantages of planting a vegetable in the fall, or in other words, winter planting?
If you decide to sow seeds in the fall, then we can safely say that you will definitely save a lot of time in the spring in order to sow other vegetable crops. Also, the harvest of winter beets can be harvested much earlier than the one that was planted in the spring. In addition, there is no need not only to pre-soak the seeds, but also to carry out other stages of their mandatory preparation for sowing – pickling with special preparations and drying immediately before planting. If you start planting beets in the fall, you will get natural hardening of seeds right in the soil, which will give them the opportunity to endure possible spring frosts with honor, and also increase their immunity to a number of diseases dangerous for vegetable crops.
The growing season for this plant can vary in a fairly wide range – from 50 to 130 days. Much here depends on the characteristics of the vegetable variety that you choose to plant in your garden. In those regions where the summer is rather short, planting beets before winter can generally be considered an ideal option. After all, if you start planting it in such areas in the spring, then the crop may die when the first frost appears. It should be remembered that indispensable conditions for good growth and development of beets are not only the presence of sufficient heat and light, but also moderate watering.
Video “Winter sowing. Beet”
Instructions
What stages allow for a competent planting of beets in the fall? First of all, it is necessary to select only the best root varieties for planting before winter. Today, there are varieties of vegetable crops that are optimal for autumn sowing and show an increased degree of resistance to the formation of unwanted arrows. Among them are such wonderful varieties as Podzimnyaya A-474 and Cold-resistant-19. After suitable varieties have been selected and purchased, you can begin to search for a suitable place for growing this root crop.
We have already remembered that the beets are very fond of sufficient lighting, and shading can adversely affect its normal growth and harmonious development. Also, the presence of light is necessary so that the vegetable can acquire its beautiful rich color. Given all this, the landing site should not only be properly lit, but also be located on a fairly high area.
It is also necessary to take into account the fact that when growing one vegetable crop in the same place for many years, it can deplete the soil and have a bad effect on its characteristics. It is in such a land that the presence of many pests and pathogenic bacteria is noted. Therefore, the landing site should sometimes be changed. Experts call vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions good predecessors for beets. After them, you can safely plan the planting of different varieties of your favorite root crop. But carrots and cabbage are those vegetable crops, planting beets after which is highly undesirable. Also remember that this root crop does not grow well on land in which the acidity index exceeds the norm.
To determine if the soil in your area is too acidic, simply look at which weeds have chosen it as their favorite place to live. If plantain, sedge, horsetail, horse sorrel, wood lice appear in the garden, then something should be done with high acidity. Liming worked well in this case. To do this, the soil is cultivated in autumn, using about 200 – 300 grams of lime per square meter. Ash, chalk, dolomite flour or marl are also suitable. If you see such crops in the garden as chamomile, field bindweed, coltsfoot, couch grass, then you don’t have to worry – your beets will grow normally on soil that has a neutral or slightly acidic acidity level.
Before planting, the surface of the beds must be leveled and special grooves should be made, the length of which should be about 20 cm. They should already be on the site before the start of sowing, most importantly, do not make them with a spade over the edges of the bed so that the grooves are not destroyed by possible precipitation. As for their depth, it should be about 6 cm. For planting beets, a special nutrient soil is prepared, which has a loose structure. The layout of such materials has proven itself well – garden soil with the addition of sand and rotted compost. Peat is also prepared in advance, with the help of which mulch will then be created. It also needs to be collected in bags or buckets, and hidden in a shelter, like the ground, until landing.
What are the terms for sowing beets before winter? Since this root crop is a plant that normally tolerates cold, its seeds are able to sprout at a temperature of more than 10 degrees. In order not to lose part of the seeds, one should not rush to sow, it is worth waiting for the time when the spring frosts recede. Thus, the planting dates for this vegetable fall at the end of October – mid-November. At this time, the soil temperature can be from -2 to -4 degrees, and the environment – from 0 degrees. When sowing seeds, remember that they must be completely dry and planted in the same dry soil.
If suddenly the first snow is already lying in the garden, it should be cleaned off without fail. For this, a hard broom is most often used, with which the grooves are carefully cleaned, into which the seeds are then sown.
The grooves will need to be covered with peat, which in no case should be frozen, and also filled with pre-prepared nutrient soil, which was in the shelter. After that, the earth must not only be carefully tamped and leveled, but also covered with mulch, the layer of which will be about 4 cm. , leaves or sawdust.
Tips
With the onset of spring – immediately after the snow begins to melt from the beds – the shelter created with the help of improvised materials will need to be removed in order to allow the fragile sprouts that have appeared to sprout normally and develop fully. After that, the top layer of the earth is necessarily loosened, then a special fertilizer rich in nitrogen is applied, and the bed is covered with a film. This procedure is necessary in order to get the opportunity to harvest the long-awaited harvest a week earlier. But after you see the presence of seedlings, do not forget to remove the film as well.
A mandatory moment after planting beets is the thinning of seedlings, it will need to be done about a week after the emergence of seedlings of the crop.Since more than one sprout can appear from each seed, and many gardeners, for greater certainty, also sow seeds much more than the norm, in order to prevent crowding of sprouts and get roots of normal size and with excellent taste, the beds with the first shoots that have appeared must be thinned out. Otherwise, the tips for planting and caring for beets planted before winter do not differ much from caring for the one that was planted in the spring. If you carry out adequate watering in time, periodically loosen the soil and remove unnecessary weeds, then you can expect a good harvest.
Video “How to grow beautiful beets”
From the video you will learn about the features of growing beets, sowing and caring for the crop.
