Thursday, July 14, 2011

Beets on Wednesday


I planted red and golden beets this spring.  Wednesday was beet harvest day.  There's nothing more satisfying to a gardener than pulling a large, lovely beet out of the ground. Unless it's a potato.  Or an onion.  Or a turnip.  Or a [insert root vegetable here].


The golden beets are true to their name.  I can't say that I taste any difference between the two varieties.


I canned ten pints of pickled beets.  The golden ones are certainly pretty--they look like peaches in the glass jars.

I had plans of tilling up the old beet bed today and planting some turnips and rutabagas.  But a heavy rainstorm last night put the kibosh on that plan.  The next five days are supposed to be in the 90s with heat indexes over 100.  Which puts further kibosh on my plans.  Tilling and planting in extreme heat is not my cup of tea.  The seeding can wait another week, I think.

5 comments:

Erin said...

The beets are so pretty, do you know I have still never even had one? Well, except for trying a sliver off a salad bar once... I was unimpressed, but I know that the freshness and flavor of a garden beet is probably completely different if it's anything like some other veggies I have been new too. I'm willing to try again someday LOL!

Sorry to hear about the heat, it's a nightmare I don't wish on anyone, blech!

Mama Pea said...

I think you just talked me into planting some yellow beets next year . . . something I've never done. We love pickled beets (also beets cooked with butter, salt and pepper) and now I think it would be fun to serve a mixture of red and yellow beets on a plate.

We're in for the yucky, humid, hot weather coming, too. Double blech.

Mr. H. said...

I've got to try pickling beets this year, never had them that way but it does sound good. Congrats on such nice beets...especially those hard to grow golden ones.

Anonymous said...

ALICE HERE--MY MOM USED TO MAKE SOMETHING SHE CALLED "HARVARD BEETS" IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. SHE TOOK THE PICKLED BEETS, ADDED SUGAR AND CORN STARCH AND ???--IT TASTED BETTER THAN "JUST PLAIN BEETS" AND LOOKED PRETTY ON OUR WINTER PLATES....DON'T KNOW WHAT THE RECIPE IS, BUT MAYBE MAMA PEA WOULD KNOW.

Mama Pea said...

Hi, Alice. This is Mama Pea but I'm not much help on the Harvard Beets front! I've only tasted them a couple of times and haven't cared for them. I believe they're made by cooking beets, adding vinegar and sugar (and sometimes spices) and thickening the "juice" with flour or cornstarch, then serving hot. I've always found them too gloppy and sweet but maybe I've never had good ones! My mother-in-law used to serve ones she bought in a jar. Don't know if they are still available that way.