Beets have been used for thousands of years as blood builders and blood purifiers.  There have been research studies on adults with high blood pressure and the consumption of beets had the effect of lowering blood pressure, as well as lowering triglycerides and cholesterol. Beets also help to cure diseases of the circulatory system, large intestine, and digestive system as well as dissolve stones in the liver, kidneys and bladder.  Beets have been found to increase the body`s production of glutathione, which helps the body detoxify cancer-causing poisons.

Now you say, well, ok how should I eat them?  A question that I once pondered myself.  There are plenty of ways to increase your consumption of beets.

1. I like to in the fall time make a root vegetable roast with beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and red potatoes toss in olive oil, garnish with rosemary and thyme and roast until tender.
2. In my undergraduate work, we had to do a cultural food presentation and our group had to present foods from Russia and beets are a staple there.  We ended up making borsch, which is a cabbage and beet soup.  I know what you are thinking, eeewww thats really gross, but it was actually good and has astronomical health benefits.
3. Another way to prepare beets is to roast them and serve them with a little bit of goat cheese.
4. My newest and most favorite way to eat beets is in a drink called the “Pink Lady” the blog where I found the idea had it listed as a juice recipe, but as a future dietitian, I do not necessarily endorse juicing because by doing so, you are missing the most important part of fruits and veggies – the fiber!  So, any juicing recipe I have come across, I have just made it into a shake by simply using a blender and adding a bit of juice.  I digress.  Back to the Pink Lady.  The recipe calls for a beet, a pear, pineapple and ginger.  I just blend 1 beet (peeled), 1 pear (seeded, skin intact), 1square inch of ginger (more or less if you like ginger) and 4oz pineapple juice.  It’s quite delicious.

So, now you have 4 different ways to try beets.  I hope you experiment, have fun, enjoy and reap many health benefits while doing so.  Also, I would love to hear any feedback in regards to what y’all do with this info.  Happy Healthing!

Bizzy seems to love almost everything we give her.  She especially loves beets.  This makes me so happy because:

1. Beets are so good for you nutritionally!
2. I grew the beets!
3. Beets are easy to prepare!

She was eating two pieces at a time and making that “yum-yum” noise as she went!

See how to make your baby freshly cooked beets after the break…

The cons?  There’s only one, in my opinion, BEETS CAN STAIN.  So be prepared for that. Bizzy had JUST put on her new batman shirt (with cape on the back!) and I was dumb enough to let her eat beets in it.  I did end up getting the beet juice out though.  As soon as she was done eating I ripped the shirt off of her and ran to the bathroom sink.  Sprayed a bunch of Resolve on the spots and let it soak for a while.  Then I just rinsed and rinsed and it was like new.  Phffew!  Bruce Wayne would have been upset enough to go buy her a new one and glare at me if the beet juice had stained!

Steps on How to Prepare Homegrown, Homemade Beets For Your Baby

1. Grow the beets!  You can grow them in pots, pallet beds, raised beds, or straight in the ground.  I’ve grown many different varieties like Detroit Dark Red, Early Wonders, Bull’s Blood, Rudy Queen, and many more.  (Check out my Pinterest Board for what varieties I’m growing now.)  Most of my beet seeds come from Botanical Interests, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, or Seed Savers.  Check them out.  Beets grow pretty quickly too (50-60 days). (They also sell beets in the grocery store, so if you want to try eating them before growing just guy a few!  I’d get the ones with the greens still attached.)
2. Harvest the beets! When you see their shoulders raised from the dirt, and they look big enough for you, pull them up.  A great guide to follow is the seed packet themselves.  The “dates to maturity” on the packet will give you a pretty accurate estimate of the date you can harvest your beets.  (They also sell beets in the grocery store, so if you want to try eating them before growing just guy a few!  I’d get the ones with the greens still attached.)
3. Clean the beets! Twist the tops off about 2-3 inches above the root.  Clean and save the greens for other recipes.  Scrub the dirt off the beets as best you can (doesn’t need to be immaculately clean) and toss them in a pot of water.
4. Boil the beets! This is the easiest way the prepare beets, in my opinion, because the cleaning is so much easier.  Depending on how big and how many beets you harvested, you’ll boil the beets for about 30 minutes.  If they’re really small beets, just do 15-20.  Poke them with a knife or fork to see how tender they are.  If they don’t fall off the knife, then let them boil a little longer.
5. Clean the beets again! After they’ve boiled long enough, drain the beets in a colander with cold water running over them.  While they’re still hot, sluff off the outer skin of the beets under the cold water.  The rough skins should just fall off pretty easily when you lightly rub on them with your fingers.  If the skin sticks, you might need a paring knife to get the skin off (or you might need to boil the beet a little longer).
6. Chow down! Bizzy likes her pieces cut into pretty small pieces (1/4-1/2 inch pieces or so).  Their a little slick so with bigger chunks she kind of gags.  (She only has two teeth so far, so kids with more teeth might do better with bigger pieces.)

Health benefits of beets: They are a good stomach acid reducer, I’ve read where they reduce the risk of cancer, they cleanse the liver and purify your blood, they contain betaine which reduces depression, they contain trytophan which helps relax the mind, they also contain fiber, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, vitamins A, B & C, beta-carotene, beta-cyanine, and folic acid.  If you’re eating lots of beets and your urine isn’t pink, then you need to eat more beets.  The pinker your urine; the lower your stomach acid levels.

Does your baby or toddler love beets too?  Have you ever tried growing your own food to feed your babies?  It’s so rewarding!  Please try it.  Carrots, beets, greens, and many other foods can be easily grown in containers on your porch or balcony. 

If your child doesn’t have teeth yet, and you need a baby food mill, Amazon has some great deals:

The Green Sprouts, Munchkin, and Freshfoods Baby Food Mills (I have the Freshfoods one) are easy to use and adjustable so you can make it coarser or finer.  $7-$12 on Amazon.

The Beaba Babycook Baby Food Maker makes fast work of it (electric).  Used starts at $70, new is $119.

Amazon Moms Deals:

Save 20% on Mega Blocks (ages 1+).  Bizzy Bee LOVES hers.

Take an instant $10 off this Tiny Love Gymini Playmat

Fall Children’s Books are on sale too!

It’s a love born out of hate.  That sounds like an oxymoron but it isn’t

I started raising lettuce when the price for 12 ounces of the organic stuff hit $5.98 a bag.  For me, that’s $18 a week for just a bit over a pound of green leafy lettuce.

Do the math.  I was spending almost $1000 a year on lettuce!  Try doing that on a fixed income.

I hated paying the price so I stared planting and growing my own.  And guess what?  Lettuce is one of the easiest crops I have ever raised.  And, it’s a two-fer! Save your seeds and pay no more (well maybe you’ll have to buy every 3 or 4 years).  Just keep planting and harvesting.

So, let’s start with seeds.  I am pretty particular about whose seed I buy.  I want organic seed, especially if I plan on saving and sowing.  And I want flavorful leaf lettuce — not head lettuce you have to chop with a cleaver.  And I definitely do not want Genetically Modified (GMO) seed.

There are three places I buy seed:
Hudson Valley Seed Library -  the variety they offer is impressive.  Their seed is  locally grown in a climate and soil not unlike mine here in Zone 6b.  And this company helps support school and community gardeners with donations of seeds.

Territorial Seeds – kind of the granddaddy of organic seed growers, this company was organic before organic went mainstream.  Family owned, Territorial Seeds has a fantastic reputation for the seeds it sells and the customer service it brings to the table.

Grow Italian – I discovered this company more than a decade ago and it’s my go to seed company for all things Italian including lettuce and mixed greens.  When you buy a packet of lattuga from them, you get high quality, high-germinating seeds and a lot of them.

I think the hardest part of growing lettuce is picking the kinds you want to try.  But once you have your seeds, planting is so easy, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. I tend to sow the seeds right in the garden bed.  One problem planting lettuce is that the seeds are small and lightweight and they tend to drop into the dirt in clumps or blow off my hand. I used to have a hard time getting them to spread out on the soil but here’s a trick my sister taught me.

1. Get some soil – take it from your garden if it’s rich and light or grab some potting mix.
2. Fill a quart jar about 2/3rds full of the soil.
3. Put lettuce seeds in the jar.  I put different types together so I grow my own “mixed greens.”
4. Shake the jar until all the seeds are mixed, uniformly, through the soil.
5. Gently shake the soil out of the jar and into your beds. If you can still see some of them, put just a tiny bit of dirt over the visible ones.
6. Water the seeds in.

Then all you have to do is water every day until the seeds spout.  Then water weekly and wait for the lettuce to grow.

A few more tips:

1. Don’t plant in the summer!  Lettuce, like beets, likes cool weather.  You can plant in the spring and again in August for harvest in late September and October.
2. Start lettuce plants indoors if you want.  I use 40-cell growing trays and start mine in early February.  When I transplant, I cover the babies with a small tunnel to protect them from frost.
3. When you cut lettuce leaves, don’t cut them down to the ground.  Cut about an inch from the bottom and you will get a second crop.
4. If you want to save the seeds, plant for a spring harvest but only cut the first crop.  Let the second set of lettuce leaves grow up and flower.  Then wait.  It will be tempting to take the flower heads off when they get their puffy, white hair.  DON’T.The seeds need to mature.  Wait until the heads are dry, brown and about ready to burst.  Then pull the seed heads off, take the seeds out and let them dry in a small strainer for a couple of weeks.  I refrigerate mine once they’re dry and plant them in the fall.

Next week, another favorite in my fall garden (and another easy one to grow) — garlic.

My adventure with growing more and longer began a bit late in my gardening life but I’m glad it did.  Truthfully, I probably will never get as far as master gardeners like Eliot Coleman.   who authored a favorite book of mine, Four Season Harvest, but I am enjoying cool weather crops like fresh lettuce, spinach and beets from March through October.

Let’s start this trip with one of my all-time favorites – beets

Beets
My mom raised the absolute best beets I have ever eaten.  Every time I drove to her farm in the far end of Virginia, she would somehow know exactly when I was arriving.  There, on the table, steam rising, butter melting, would be a big bowl of sliced beets, just for me.

But I never planted beets in my own garden.  Not before she died, not after she died.  Then, one day, while browsing through GrowItalian.com, I saw Chioggia beets.  Beautiful, round and ruby-red on the outside but when you cut them open, there are concentric white bands all the way through each slice.

I was in love with beets, again.

Beets Are Easy Peasy
I’ve had beets in my garden now for the last 5 years and think they are among the easiest plants to grow.  But if you Google “growing beets,” you will literally get more than 3 million entries.

Don’t be scared!

There are only a couple of things you need to know to raise not just 1 but at least 2 crops of beets every year. (That’s how many I can grow in Zone 6.)  WARNING: if you ignore what you are about to read, you will get red marbles…that will not cook or eat easy.  I know.  My first crop was used in a game of ringer.

The Dirt
This is almost one of the only requirements of beets and it’s one of the most important.  It’s also the bit of information I didn’t have when I raised my first crop of red marbles.  Beets really, really like loose, well-drained soil. They will put up with a wide range but won’t grow as big or as beautifully.

So do a bit of soil prep if you can. It may take a bit of time and effort but it’s worth it; I know.  And if you get the soil right, it’s smooth sailing to harvest time.

Remove stones since they will hinder growth.  If you’re growing in clay, add compost to loosen the soil and keep the soil from crusting after watering or rainfall.  And make sure your soil is acidic – beets like a pH range of 6.2 to 6.8.

When To Plant
Don’t plant in the middle of your summer season.  Beets won’t like it.  They are a perfect cool weather crop.  Although they can live through the heat (like the rest of us), they prefer a temperatures of 60 to 65 F and bright sunny days but they can also survive cold weather as long as they don’t get caught in a freeze.  So, beets are a great, “long-season” crop.

How To Plant
Beet seeds are outdoor babies from the get go.  As soon as your soil can be worked in the spring, you can plant them.  The seeds aren’t really just one seed – each of these little jewels contains a couple of beet seeds.  Sow the seeds 1/2-inch deep and I drop each seed about 3 inches away from the other seeds.  I also plant in rows about 12 inches apart.

Beets seeds are pretty slow to germinate so make sure you keep the bed moist until you see their little heads peeking out of the soil.  I usually water a bit, every day.  Once they start to pop up through the soil, I keep watering but usually every other day.

Once they are established, just make sure that you don’t let them dry out.  But don’t overwater either.  Too dry or too wet and your beets will not be happy.

Transplanting
TIP:  I don’t thin; I transplant.

Most advice online and in books says you have to thin beets rather than transplant.  Wrong!

Despite what people will tell you, you can transplant beet seedlings and almost double your crop. And it’s easy to do.

I wait until the leaves on the plants are about 2 inches long before I try transplanting.  The night before the big move, I water the bed thoroughly.  Then, early in the morning, armed with a #2 pencil, I head to the raised bed where my beets live.

I look for beet plants that are too close together. Because I’m not be most patient person when dropping seeds in soil, I can usually find 3 or 4 beet babies clumped together.

DON’T PULL THEM OUT ONE BY ONE!

Once I’ve found the baby beet clump I want to move, I gently dig around the whole clump and bring up a shovel full of soil with the beet roots intact.  Then I push my pencil into the ground, making holes spaced about 3 inches apart, for each of the babies.

Teasing the roots apart, gently, (a trick I learned from my Amish neighbors) I drop each beet baby into its own hole, pack dirt gently around it and move on to the next clump.

I have not lost one beet baby using this method and I practically double my yield.  Oh, and beets are a twofer in my garden – I also eat beet greens in salads.  Wait until the leaves are 3 to 4 inches high, then cut a couple off each beet plant.  The beets will keep growing and you’ll have some truly delicious greens for lunch or dinner.

Care & Feeding
Like I said, beets are easy peasy.

I have never fertilized my beets and they grow like champions.  It could be because I enrich my raised beds with a bit of compost every spring.  I do put a bit of mulch – straw – down around the plants once I divide and transplant them.  It helps hold moisture during the hotter, summer days.

Keep The Beets Coming
I plant in March, April, May then hold off until early August when I start putting in seeds, again.  I do that to avoid asking the beet seeds to germinate when the daytime temperature is above 80 degrees.  They don’t like it.  Plant in early August and within 55 to 70 days, you should have your next crop.

Nowadays there are so many varieties of beet to choose from — Early Wonder, Detroit Dark Red, and Red Ace.  You can even add some color to your beet dishes with the lovely striped Chioggia (which started me on my life of beet crime) or Burpee Golden and Albino White

No matter how you slice them…beets are a great addition to any garden.

By the way, one of my favorite resources when I am trying to get solid, informed, basic growing information is the so-called “land grant” colleges like Penn State and Ohio State.  They usually offer fact sheets like the one on beets that was posted by Ohio State.

Next week, another favorite in my fall garden (and another easy one to grow) — lettuce!

Beets growing in my garden…yipee!

I know, I am totally strange ( cause who says that kinda stuff anyways??), but Beets might be my favorite summer thing (besides melon, berries, peaches…).

Everything about them is awesome. The taste, the beautiful color, and all the possibilities of what you can do with them.

According to The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael T. Murray (and Joseph Pizzorno and Lara Pizzorno):
” Beetroots have long been used for medicinal purposes, primarily for disorders of the liver, given their stimulating effects on the liver’s detoxification processes. Beets have also gained recognition for their reported anticancer properties. The pigment that gives beets their rich purple crimson color, betacyanin, is a powerful cancer-fighting agent.”

So when I was able to harvest beets from my own garden the other day, Roasted Beet salad was on my dinner table!

It is so easy to make (just takes a little time to roast the beets!) and really up to your imagination…

I first prepare the beets and put them on a cookie sheet. I roast them in a 400 degree oven for about 1 hour.

When they cool, remove the skin and cut them up. This is a little messy, but pink is a lovely color. Don’t wear a white shirt or shorts though…

I love them pretty plain. I just add about a tablespoon or so of Olive Oil, some Balsamic Vinegar, Salt, Pepper and then some crumbled goat cheese on top, I also squeezed a little bit of grapefruit juice in there to give it a bit of citrus. Simply Delicious.

If I would have had some basil, I would have added that as well, but I didn’t have any, bummer for me…

I am not the only one talking about beets this morning… NPR posted an article online too (read it here- great recipes!!)! Who knew I was so in the know??

What do you do with beets?? Please share, I always love new ideas!!

I am planting my beet seeds out in the garden this week. Beets are a wonderful vegetable. They bring back memories of my mother making pickled beets each summer, her hands ‘beet’ red from the whole process. As a child I could never figure out why she liked them. The kitchen always reeked of vinegar. Now I have developed a love for anything beets. Pickles, roasted or raw, they are tasty in so many ways.
Beets are funny seeds. It doesn’t matter if you plant the seed just one at a time as you always get more than one plant from each seed. Its kind of like having twins. You will have to thin your beets no matter how carefully you plant them. I think its just natures way of making sure her seeds survive.
You can direct sow beet seeds from April 15-June 30 here on the lower mainland of BC. Plant your seeds about a 1/2 inch deep and one inch apart. Thin your plants to 3-6″ apart so the beets have room to grow.
 Beets like any well prepared soil. I like to add compost to my beds before planting. I will be planting them in raised beds again this year. Beets like some sun but will also tolerate some shading. Be sure to maintain even soil moisture as the plants will not tolerate drought.

When thinning save them for a meal. All parts of the plant are edible. Add the leaves to a salad. To harvest your beets, brush away the top of the soil to check for size. They can be harvested as tiny baby beets or when they are about one and a half  inches across. In most areas we pull our beets for storage before a heavy frost. Last year I left my beets in the ground and harvested right until Christmas. There is nothing better than pulling root crops fresh from the garden in winter!
This year I am trying out the Beet Blend seeds from West Coast Seeds. This blend includes Chioggia, Detroit Supreme, Early Wonder Tall Top and Cylindra. I will also be growing some golden beets called Touchstone Gold. Can you tell I like beets?

He and Margaret Iona McPhearson were married May 26, 1923, after she had finished a term of teaching on Redlands Mesa. Her parents were pioneers in the Green River, Utah, area.

He is director of the Delta-Montrose REA, which position he has held for 15 years, and is also secretary-treasurer of the Colorado Ute Electric Association.

Burritt, a farmer, says he has always raised diversified crops including fruit, hay, grain and also turkeys.

He was active in the Colorado Bee Growers organization and beets were his principal crop for about 30 years although he is not raising them now. He started growing beets about 1922.

Burritt was president of the association during the late 20’and early 30’s, and he said at that time more acreage was planted to beets. There was a factory at Grand Junction and one at Delta.

During his term in office, in about 1834, beet growers here staged a strike. “The company came out with a contract that had no minimum. One provision was a $6 minimum in resolution presented by the organization-the company refused to put a minimum.” Burritt says.

The strike lasted until May 10. As a result the farmer planted other crops.

The organization then released the growers from responsibility to the company so then farmers planted crops of their choosing.  That year the plant at Grand Junction closed and there were barely enough beets to operate the Delta factory, Burritt remembers.

In the intervening years the acreage gradually increased and although there has never been a sufficient quantity of beets since then, the acreage is constantly increasing. Growers now plant larger acreage but the number of growers has not increased.

Burritt’s parents, Fred and Isabelle (Brower) Burritt were early settlers. They came to Delta County in 1886, three years after its activation. His mother’s parents were possibly the original settle on the old Brower place on Tongue Creek in 1882 close to the river as they cleared the land there for a home.

John Burritt has been in the Redlands mesa area since 1915. There are very few old-timers in that area who are still alive, he says. Some of those remaining include Mrs. Dan Luddinton, whose son now operates the ranch; and Harry Wood Jr., who operates his deceased father’s ranch.

Another deceased old-timer in that area was David Stull who built the Stull ditch from Leroux Creek to Redlands Mesa.

Many old-timers also would remember J. G. A. Simpson aka “Alphabet Simpson”. He was responsible to a great extent for the planting of orchards in that Vicinity.

Burritt recalls that the lower or west end of the mesa was “a solid mass of orchards” when he first located there and Simpson helped to plant most of them.

Simpson was greatly interested in county fairs and took ‘a lot of prizes with his fruit, principally apples. He had a few peaches, cherries and apricots too. Alphabet Simpsons died when he was 102 years old.” He first lived south of the Hanson place near Leroux Creek then moved to Redlands Mesa.

Close to the Simpson’s ranch Charlie Case (deceased ran a small farm but produce outstanding fruit.

Delta County Independent

May 1958

Linda

http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com   

http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com

There is something so spectacular about pulling a vegetable out of the ground.  I hope I never get over that.

We sow in a foot-wide (or wider) bed, ½ inch deep and an inch or two apart in loose soil. As with beans, I rake a bed smooth, broadcast seeds, and shovel soil over them. You can do this as soon as you can work the soil. Beets are tastiest grown fast and wet, so mulch the bed lightly with leaf mold, compost, or grass clippings to hold moisture but not prevent germination. We harvest beets at 2 inches thick, no more than 3, add the greens to a salad or steam them. Beets themselves I boil in a covered saucepan until fork tender. Drop them in cold water, slip the skins off, and serve whole, in quarters, or sliced with an egg slicer with butter. Red Ace is my favorite, but a close second is Touchstone Gold, a golden beet. Both are sweet and tender.

You can sow in two-week intervals untilo 8 weeks before expected fall frost, but in summer soak the seeds for 12 hours to aid germination. Fall beets can e left in the ground, mulched heavily to keep out frost, and pulled up through winter. A little cold sweetens most any root vegetable. Isn’t that nice?