Beetroot and Chard

Beetroot ("Beets" to you folks in the USA) is one of my favourite vegetables, and it features frequently in our diet both as a cold salad ingredient and also as a hot vegetable to go with Winter meals.

This year I am growing two types of red beetroot - "Red Ace" and the old favourite "Boltardy" - and (for the first time) a golden variety "Burpee's Golden". In order to prolong my harvesting season I sowed the red beetroots a couple of weeks before the golden one, and the red ones also had the benefit of cloches, which the golden one didn't. This is what they look like now:

"Red Ace"

"Burpee's Golden"

Over the weekend I thinned out the red beetroot again. Most of you will know by now that my style is to thin crops successively rather than just once. The smallest leaves from the beetroot thinnings make an interesting salad ingredient, and the bigger leaves can be cooked and served as a hot vegetable.

As well as the beetroot I am also growing a small quantity of the closely-related Swiss Chard and Perpetual Spinach. Jane doesn't like either of these, so I don't grow much, but I love Chard. It is effectively two vegetables in one - the green parts of the leaves can be used like spinach, and the fleshy stems can be cooked as you might cook Asparagus. In this picture of young Chard you can see the pinkish-white stems already beginning to thicken:

Swiss Chard

I grow Perpetual Spinach mainly because it bolts less readily than the "normal" spinach. Its name is a bit misleading actually - it is a Biennial, in other words a plant whose life spans two years: you sow it at the start of one year, and it runs to seed at the end of the next. The plants produce leaves much like any other spinach, though perhaps a bit more robust. The stems never thicken like Chard though.

Perpetual Spinach

My favourite way to eat Perpetual Spinach is the "Florentine" way, wilted very gently in just a tiny amount of water, squeezed out and served with a poached egg on top, and some toast.