When to sow beetroot?
- Botanical name
- Beta vulgaris
- Family
- Amaranthaceae
Beetroot is sown outdoors from March to July, 2.5 cm deep. It germinates in 10 to 15 days. It is harvested from June to October.
Beetroot is a biennial plant. The edible parts are the roots and leaves.
Beetroot seed is a cluster of several seeds. One sown seed therefore sends up several plants, which are thinned later or left to grow as a clump. The spacing of 10 centimetres in the row applies to single plants, 15 centimetres to a clump of two or three.
Sowing follows once the ground has warmed to 7 °C. At that temperature the seed germinates slowly, in warmer soil faster.
Beetroot is one of the few root crops that takes transplanting. In colder areas it is therefore sown indoors, one seed cluster per container. The plants are hardened off outdoors before transplanting and moved to the bed once they are well rooted.
Beetroot through the year
- indoor sowing
- transplanting
- outdoor sowing
- harvest
In short
The last frost is not on the same day everywhere, so the recorded weeks are a guide and not a date.
Growing conditions
Is beetroot toxic to cats and dogs?
No. Beetroot is not toxic to cats and dogs.
Companions in the bed
Companion planting is tradition and not an agronomic claim. What is recorded is which pairs sources recommend and which they advise against.
- “Cited” means the pair is named by one source or two.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- The leaves are riddled with small round holes, as if somebody had peppered them with shot. Touched, the beetles jump. Young plants with such leaves stall or die, older ones grow through the damage.
- Prevention
- Clear away the plant debris in which the beetles overwinter. Cover the bed with fleece right after sowing or planting and leave it until the plants are strong. Keep the soil moist, because a dry warm spring is the worst case.
- What to do
- Pin fleece down at the edges, which is the main measure. In autumn or early spring loosen the top layer of soil to cut down the number of overwintering beetles.
- Signs
- Just under the skin of the leaf there are pale winding trails or irregular blotches, with the larvae inside them. The blotches are broad and the leaf is no longer for the plate.
- Prevention
- Cover the bed with fleece before the flies start laying their eggs in early spring. Remove the weeds of the same family, on which the pest keeps going between crops.
- What to do
- Squeeze the attacked leaves between your fingers so that the larvae in them die, or remove and destroy the leaves, which is the main measure. Do not spray, because that also destroys the parasitoids that keep the miners in check.
- Signs
- Holes appear in the middle of the leaf rather than along the edge, young plants are eaten down to the ground, and there are slimy trails in the morning. On low-growing fruit there are gnawed pits.
- Prevention
- Remove the hiding places beside the bed: boards, stones, dense weeds. Water in the morning and not in the evening, so that the night is dry. Spread a band of coarse sand or gravel around the bed. Cover young plants with fleece. Pick them off at night, which is still the most effective measure.
- What to do
- Baits with iron phosphate are held to carry less risk for pets and children. Put them out in bands beside the bed, not scattered over the whole surface.
Check the registration and the label before use.
Keep track of your plants with Tendask
Log the task and set a reminder for the next one. Every plant keeps its own history, so there is nothing to guess at.
Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Amaranthaceae).
Sources about the plant: Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Clemson Cooperative Extension, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, Iowa State University Extension, KGZS Zavod Ljubljana, KGZS Zavod Nova Gorica, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Semenarna Ljubljana, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Utah State University Extension, Washington State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: University of Maryland Extension, University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension.