The Beet Goes On

65 and overcast this morning with a few light drizzles. Looked like rain most of the day, interspersed with sun and some strong breezes, but all in all a nice day.

It was past time to harvest the beets. I've been trying to get to them for the past two weeks and finally decided that today was the day.

We grew Lutz beets this year, a different variety for me. I wanted to try them because the tops are less red than the Detroit Dark Reds I've been growing. I thought the flavor would be milder, and as it turns out I was right. Lutz tops are very like Swiss Chard both in color and flavor, at least to me. And they grow BIG. Really big. 

Today was perfect for pulling them because the ground is still soft from all the rain recently. Larry brought me a wheelbarrow brimming over with the beets and a few carrots that were also huge. He accidentally tilled up most of the row of carrots earlier in the spring, but the ones he missed did very well. I got a couple bags of them into the freezer before tackling the beets.

Tackling is a good word for it too. Some were so large that I just relegated them to the chickens. But there were plenty of nice sized ones, even though this was only about a 10 foot row. I ended up with about 15 pints of pickled beets, I think, plus some for dinner tonight and 3 bags of greens for the freezer. And the chickens ate very well, too, with all the scraps and tops I didn't use.

I sometimes wonder why I bother with beets. We don't eat many of them, really. We'll open a jar, eat a few and then the rest go to waste. We need to do better--it's a lot of work to put these things up. But I cannot imagine planting a garden without beets, and even now I have two more plantings coming along. These I will just put up without pickling, and I am determined that we will eat beets at least twice a month in the coming year. 

So now the canning/putting up season has finally begun, a little later than usual but I think we're in for a good harvest. We're getting cucumbers now and I bet I'll be making pickles next week. Green beans are ready and I'll put them up on Thursday. Corn looks like it's a week out, the peppers are covered up, squash is coming in like crazy and I can't keep up with it. The tomatoes will be a while yet since we got a late start with them, and zucchini the same. 

I have another planting of onions, lettuce, zucchini, squash, and radishes coming up now in the small rock-walled garden. Clyde the cat thought I'd made him a big litter box and rearranged some of my plantings so they're coming up oddly in places, but oh well. I also planted the asparagus that I started from seed and so far so good. I have some late cabbage ready to plant as soon as we can get some ground worked up. 

Busy days ahead, for sure, but it will be nice to see the cellar fill up again.

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