Thinning Beets: Gardening Maintenance
Let’s chat about gardening maintenance. One of the reasons I like the Square Foot Gardening method is because it doesn’t require you to “thin your plants” as traditional gardening does. I like this approach because it FEELS like there is “less waste” and you’re not killing a plant just because its neighbor plant is growing stronger. The Square Foot Gardening method advocates for seed saving and teaches that you should plant only what you need so that you aren’t “thinning” anything out down the road.
As you may know, I have a container garden as well. I’m also gardening with toddlers who may or may not have gotten a bit too “seed happy” and planted MORE than we needed… (whoops!!). Fast forward to about a month later and my beets are growing, but the real estate looks pretty TIGHT.
It’s important that beets (and pretty much everything I’ve read about, with the exclusion of bunching onions) have space to grow and are not competing for nutrition. If I were to keep my beets growing all bunched up together, then they wouldn’t be able to grow to their full potential and I’d end up with a whole bunch of nothing… So it’s important in this case that I thin out my beets. I asked my friends on Instagram with the below pictures to confirm.
Everyone advised that it was time to thin, so I did
I set out to learn how to “thin my beets” from the best place I know – YouTube. I watched a couple of videos on the subject. I wanted something that specifically addressed beets. I found this video and really liked what the guy had to say.
As stated in the video, it’s best to snip gently at the soil line because you don’t want to disturb the roots of the plant you want to keep. Note that some may be intertwined. I took a pair of gardening shears and starting snipping!
I decided to keep my beets spaced out about 3” apart. Keep in mind I’m working with a 12” pot, so that really doesn’t leave me too much room…
I was happy to learn that the entire plant is edible. This means zero waste, which is awesome and comforts any sad feelings about killing the plant. Beet greens are great because they’re high in Vitamin K, copper, manganese, iron, and calcium. Win-win 😊
The beet greens tasted absolutely delicious. The pictured amount (above) lasted both my husband and I for 2 days – first over Bruschetta slices and then again tossed into a fresh salad. Both were great!
I also wanted to call out that I think the “hair cut” was really beneficial because my beets when from sad to glad! Just look at these two pictures, taken only two days apart. In first one, you can see that my beets are lying down… looking sad. Then post-hair cut, they are perky and standing up tall and happy 😊
While I’m teaching myself this gardening gig for the first time, I will probably have to “look up” how to do something for the first couple of years & that’s 100% okay with me. I am not in a rush to become an expert overnight and I’m excited to teach myself how to thin my next plant… which looks like it’ll be my radishes 😊 See you next time
