How To Collect And Save Beet Seeds

I'd say it's pretty hard to beat Beats raw or cooked the bulb is Tapper to the Beet plant as well as those delicious edible green leaves are one of the joys in a backyard garden in recent times however the seeds have gotten quite expensive especially for how little you get in a package there has to be a better way fortunately for us saving our own beet seeds is relatively easy I say relatively because it's a little more involved both with time and process than our typical seed saving crops it's messy and it takes a long time but it's nothing we can't handle so today let's go over all the steps that we need to know to save our own bean seeds ensuring that we never have to buy beets or their seeds ever again [Music] foreign make no mistake beets are super nutritious although relatively sweet they don't have an excessive amount of sugars consisting of roughly 10 carbs and two percent protein beets are an excellent source of folates Vitamin B vitamin C iron manganese and even potassium and like we mentioned even though the Taproot is the main purpose of the crop the leaves are totally edible they're delicious raw or cooked as with most crops to get the best viable seed we must first grow the best plants beet plants grow to their full potential in a rich loamy slightly acidic well-drained soil and like most root crops beets need a loose mix free of debris or impediments for nutrients this is one crop that really needs a balanced diet too heavy on the nitrogen may give you less spectacular foliage but your root Harvest May indeed suffer always go balance with these guys and include some trace minerals and elements your beets are going to be far healthier and so will you for planting beets are almost always direct seeded however unlike carrots and lettuces that require High germination temperatures and surface sewing beets can be planted a little bit deeper at around half an inch and they can also take much cooler temperatures this means that you'll be able to get your beads in the ground sooner in the spring as well as again later in the summer making them quite a versatile plant most varieties are a 60 to 70 day crop and being quite Hardy they can be collected even when the ground is totally Frozen okay we know how to get the best beets awesome but how do we get the plants to this point where we can actually collect some seeds as we've seen in my other seed collecting videos getting the seeds at the end of the crops life is easy wait for The Ripe fruit dry the seeds and then store them it's an easy process without any extra work collecting viable seed at the end of the crop's life is normally pretty easy because most of our crops like these peas here are annuals they live they grow they flower they produce seed all in a single season on the other hand beets are a little trickier they're what's known as biennials plants that take two growing Seasons to flower and produce viable seed these kind of plants need a winter chilling period known as vernalization to stimulate and Trigger them into a flowering cycle so planted in the fall the beets Sprout up quickly caught leedens first followed by true leaves within a week if you're growing beets purely for seed try to sprout them about a month before your first frost date this way you're not tying up that bed space all summer long and you're giving them the best chance to get established so that they can survive the winter after the spring thaw those beet plants are going to continue to grow with gusto but you're going to notice something different you'll notice that no bulbs begin to form at this point you know that the flowers are imminent soon after the second growing season has started the maturing beet plants will send up a noticeably thicker taller stem this is the flower stalk the flowers themselves soon appear and they're known as interrupted inflorescence the clusters of flowers and thus eventually the seed on each individual stalk can number in the dozens or even hundreds not to mention beet seeds are known as multi-germs that is each seed is actually a cluster of seeds so you can see quite quickly that you don't need very many seed plants to collect a boatload of seeds this is good and somewhat necessary to making this whole Endeavor worthwhile saving beet seeds is a two-year process with some rather large opportunity costs associated with it going through all the effort of planting beads and receiving no crop in return as well as for going two seasons in a given area is a pretty hard pill to swallow fortunately being able to plant the beets so late in the season and having them be so C prolific does mitigate some of these hindrances okay back to the seeds pollination is almost exclusively wind and insect aided so don't rely on any self-fertilization and because of this if you're working with multiple varieties of beets or if you have some Swiss chard going to seed nearby watch out cross pollination with these guys is a definite possibility once the flowers are fully pollinated they drop off pretty quickly and you're left with Green Seed clusters that look like this and it's now that the race begins to dry these guys out you want them to dry and cure on the plant for as long as possible however you gotta remove them before any rains come once they turn a light brown with absolutely no green color left you're safe to cut them off you want to do this before any of those fall rains because saving wet beet seeds successfully is nearly impossible after collecting dry the seeds off indoors for an additional two weeks you really want to get these guys good and crisp once fully dry pop off the individual clusters of seeds by simply running your hand down or agitating that seed stock they fall off pretty easy next place the fully dried seeds in an envelope Deli cup or a glass jar keep them in a cool dark dry location for maximum storage as robust and vigorous as beets are the seeds don't last forever expect about four years of storage before you start running into some viability issues this means you're going to want to plan and plant your seed bead crops accordingly it may not be wise to store tens of thousands of seeds knowing that you're not going to be able to use them all just because they're easy to grow and eventually collect the seeds doesn't mean you should be collecting more than you can reliably use remember it's going to take up bed space for one to two seasons so don't do too many if you don't have to no question beets are an extremely versatile crop with the entire plant being edible couple this with them being so hearty and productive you can see why growing beets is so popular and now being fully self-sufficient and collecting your own seeds means beets just became that much better hey happy BC collecting guys and I'll see you soon hey thanks so much for watching guys I appreciate the support more than you know and if you're getting value from these videos please like and share them to spread the word and help your fellow Gardener to grow better [Music]

Channel: The Ripe Tomato Farms

Views: 30,332

Keywords: saving seeds, how to save seeds, saving beet seeds, beets, how to grow beets, growing beets, the ripe tomato farms, how to save beet seeds, how to save carrot seeds, seed saving, saving your own seeds, collecting seeds, saving garden seeds, collect seeds, gardening tips, best way to collect seeds, homestead garden, urban farm

Id: eyJYKA09MiU

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 18 2022