Andrea and Conall harvest Cioggia beet greens in the hot mid-afternoon sun. In tiny farming, it seems that every action has several different effects and offsets, some good, some not so, and a balance, hopefully leaning to the positive side, is struck each time. Here, harvesting greens in the heat is not the greatest for the freshly pulled leaves or the plants that remain, but this is the time we had (a cloudy afternoon with a mild, refreshing breeze every harvest day would be nice!). A quick bath in cold well water instantly refreshes the harvest, and the plants will recover overnight. This particular bed of beets had gotten quite weedy, so weeding while harvesting slowed things down. But, the fairly dense piles of pulled weeds, spread between rows, dries into a decent mulch that’ll help retain moisture and prevent more weeds from germinating. And, the harvest is also a thinning session, giving the remaining plants the space to fill out into proper beets. It all works out…!!
Can you harvest beat greens without harvesting the root? If so, is their a limit as to how much to harvest for a given root?
I am reading up on beet greens and beets and have planted them this spring for the first time. What I read says that you should not take more than about a third of the greens off of a root or the beet root will not grow very big. I have a huge pile of greens from just about 6 or so 1-2 inch beets and have used some greens to spice up a regular iceberg lettuce salad. Planning to cook the rest of the greens from a recipe found on a recipe website. Hope I like them. I remember beets pickled from my grandma and I am anxious to try them again. It’s been years.