How to plant beets - the secrets of a good harvest

The answer to the question of how to plant beets is not known to every summer resident. The plant is a two-year-old plant, but one season is cultivated, as roots grow in it in the first year, and in the second, the shoot gives flowers and seeds. To collect a significant harvest of this rich vegetable elements, you need to know certain rules of cultivation.

Beet planting seeds in the open ground

Grow vegetables with seeds or seedlings. Before you start planting beets, you need to prepare a site for it. Culture rather develops in sunny and generously illuminated places, in the shade of root crops there will not be a rich red-brown hue. The plant likes fertile, non-acidified soils - loams, peat bogs, chernozems with a neutral or slightly alkaline reaction, groundwater should not be high on the site.

In the autumn the earth is digged up, cleaned of weeds. On plots that were fertilized with manure or compost (especially after root crops), it is recommended to sow the vegetable not earlier than 3 years later. Before planting beets with seeds in the open ground, in the spring during loosening 20-30 g of sulfuric-acid ammonium, 10-15 g of potassium chloride, 15-20 g of ammonium nitrate and 30-40 g of superphosphate per 1 m ² . To neutralize the acidic environment, a half kilogram of lime is added per 1 m ² .

Beet seed treatment before planting

Experienced gardeners recommend the seeds on the eve of sowing soak for swelling. The procedure will speed up the sprouting of the shoots. For soaking, prepare a nutrient solution - take 1 h of ordinary baking soda, wood ash and superphosphate, dilute in 1 liter of water. Seeds stand day in the composition, well washed. For soaking, you can use the purchased growth stimulator "Agricola Vegeta" - 1 teaspoon per liter of water. After the seeds are wrapped for a couple of days in a moistened gauze for germination and put in a warm place.

Depth of beet seed planting

Before planting beets, you need to make grooves, moisten them and wait for water absorption. The earth should be fluffy and friable. Seeding the seeds deep into the soil can not be - because of a lack of oxygen, they may not proklyutsya. Too small sowing also does not bode well: the seeds will blow out the wind or they will dry out in the heat. How to plant beets with seeds - ideal burial parameters:

Seed material is closed by 2 cm at the spring planting;
under winter seeds are buried 3-4 cm with an indispensable coating of the area with peat or humus.

How many days does the beet grow after sowing?

The beetroot is not afraid of the cold, but the warmer in the street in the spring, the faster the shoots will sprout. Germination of seeds occurs at + 5 ° C, but with such an early seedling, the sprouts will appear only after 3 weeks. Planting beets in the open ground at a later time, when the earth warms up to + 10-15 ° C, reduces the waiting time for rudiments to 5-6 days. If the street is more than +20 ° C, the shoots will already be on the third day.

Planting beet seedlings

To obtain an early harvest, it is advisable to grow beet seedlings. This method is considered more reliable, and the crop is harvested 2-3 weeks before the typical time. Seed is subjected to the same advance treatment, as in the case of sowing on an open site - soaking and germination. How to plant beet seedlings:

The substrate in the box is irrigated in advance with Phytosporin, in order to avoid the disease of future crops with a black pedicle , watered.
Then furrows are made on it every 5 cm, seeds are distributed in them. With an interval of 3 cm, the wells are formed, 3-4 pips are placed in one pit, later the shoots will be thinned. Above, the seedlings are sprinkled with the same substrate and the box is placed in the greenhouse.
For normal growth, seedlings need a moistened environment, everyday airing.
Planting seedlings of beets in the ground is carried out when four real leaflets form on the buds, and they will grow to 8-9 cm. In advance, during a week, the seedlings are tempered - the box must be taken to fresh air for a couple of hours a day.
When planting in the open ground, it is not necessary to deepen the shoots, it is better to dip the shoots before rooting in a clay solution.
Saplings at first it is better to protect with covering material, having built on a bed arcs from iron rods. By July, when the foliage of the plants will close, and the fruit reaches a size of 1.5 cm, the film is removed.

The terms of planting beets in the open ground

Beetroot can be planted twice a season:

In spring, when the earth warms up to 8-10 ° C deep into 10 cm. As a rule, the period falls on April-early May. At this time, the soil still retains moisture after the snow has come down.
Seeding of seeds for seedlings is carried out a month before it is planned to plant beets in a permanent place.
Autumn sowing is also practiced at the end of October, the deadline for planting beets is early November. The podzimniy reserve allows to collect early harvest for the next season in the first days of June.

Beet planting scheme in open ground

The size of the beet root depends on the density of the sowing - the wider the interval between the seedlings, the larger the vegetable will grow. How to plant beets - planting scheme:

Seeds are distributed in rows with further germination of shoots. The sowing scheme is often one-line (40 cm between rows) or two-line (25 cm between ridges and 50 cm between belts).
Seeds of beet have a large size, from one grain grows a few rudiments, because the seeds are grouped into a seedling by 2-3 pieces. Therefore, it is important to know at what distance to plant beets, so that in the future it was necessary to thin it less. Seeds are best laid out one by one with a distance of 5-6 cm between the specimens.
Seedlings are placed with an interval of 10-15 cm between the sprouts with an interval between rows of 25 cm to collect quality root crops of medium size.

With what to plant beets on one garden bed?

If beets grow in the garden, combined plantings can be created with colored cabbage, onions, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes. These plants have approximately the same growth conditions. The growth of beets is also helped by garlic or mint, they protect the vegetable from parasites. The culture does not combine with corn, mustard, green beans, pumpkin, which greatly obscure it.

Then you can plant beets?

When growing vegetables, it is important to maintain the order of alternation of crops to protect them from diseases and harmful insects and improve productivity. Beautiful predecessors of beets when planting - zucchini, cucumbers, legumes, onions, peppers or tomatoes. It is better not to grow root crops in the ground, where spinach, chard, carrot, cabbage grew. The same site for cultivation of beets is advised to sow no more than once every three years.

Care of beets after planting

It is important to know how to care for the beets after planting to get juicy vegetables. To do this, take the following steps:

Tear off the site of weeds, which until germination at the shoots of 4-5 leaves certainly interfere with the development of culture. Before sprouting the sprouts, the area can be sprayed with tractor oil - 35-50 g per m ² . When the first pair of leaves appears in the seedlings, the area is irrigated from the weeds with a solution of sodium nitrate. Afterwards, when the beet enters the growth, the weeds no longer can prevent it.
To loosen strands deeper by 4-5 cm to destroy the soil crust, preventing the access of oxygen to the roots.
The most important care for beets is thinning, which helps to avoid deformation of fruits, because culture is characterized by thickening of shoots. During the procedure, the soil is simultaneously loosened and all weeds are removed. In the phase of 2 full leaves at an early stage of development, the first thinning is carried out, leaving 3-5 cm between the specimens. Removed rudiments can be moved to another place - they get along perfectly.
Repeated thinning is carried out at the stage of 4 leaves, forming a distance between the specimens of 10-12 cm. The procedure is carried out after watering or rains, so as not to accidentally injure the remaining vegetables in the ground.

In late autumn, without waiting for frost (late September - October), the collection of ripened root crops begins. They are carefully excavated or pulled out, cleaned from the ground, cut off the tops and dried. In a cool room with good ventilation, the fruits are laid out in boxes, poured with dry material (sand, sawdust, peat), where they can be stored until the spring.

Addition of beets after planting in the ground

The plant needs a fertile substrate, it needs two compulsory make-ups per season. How to fertilize beets after planting:

The initial top dressing with mineral compounds is planned after the primary thinning. It consists of nitrogen fertilizers - 10 grams of urea per 1 m ² . You can make a solution of bird droppings in a consistency of 1:12 or Mullein in a ratio of 1: 8 at the rate of 12 liters of liquid composition per 10 m2 ^{of the} plot.
The second feed is given after the leaves of the leaves of the two rows of beets are closed. It requires potassium-phosphorus compounds - 8 g superphosphate and 10 g potassium chloride per m ² .
With a shortage of sodium, the beet tops turn red. It is required to sprinkle the bed with ashes - 1 st on 1.5 m ² plot.
When forming yellow progalines on the foliage, the area is poured with lime milk, which feeds the roots with potassium - 200 g of lime to a bucket of water.

How often should I water the beets after planting?

Beets are watered only as the soil dries. At the same time, waterlogging is not advised - from this, the taste characteristics of root crops deteriorate and fungal diseases can occur. Water the site in the evening to a depth of 20 cm. On average, during the vegetation period, beets produce 5-6 humidities of 5-8 liters per square meter, with further indispensable padding between rows and mulching. The first time the beet is sown, when young, well-developed shoots are visible. 15-20 days before harvesting, moistening is stopped, this improves the safety of vegetables.