Beet, how do you grow them?

[Boppo]

That is a very good tip. Different varieties might make the difference. I have tried Detroit and Golden beets. And I can't recall the 2 kinds of carrots I planted last year to resounding thuds of failure. I will try some new ones this year! The seed companies will be thrilled!

 

[nao57]

I have noticed the same problem with peat pots and even more with cow pots (made from sanitized cow poo). I had not diagnosed what was going wrong, but wicking the moisture makes a lot of sense. Even using paper pots I make at home is worse than the little plastic seed starter trays or pots. I clean and reuse these, so it's not so bad for environment or my purse. I love the idea of planting the started plants right into the ground without disturbing them by unpotting them ... and I really, really wanted cowpots to be great. But they just do not work very well, neither peat nor cowpots. Sigh.

I have grown beets, only in growbags. My beets did not get very big roots. Maybe I need a different soil mix to encourage more root growth?? Same with carrots. I thought using nice, soft, non-compacted soil in a growbag would be great for root veggies. I also tried both in a large grow container I have mainly for strawberries, with same results. I will try both again this spring, and hope for better results! Thanks for this thread!

For root growth I think that has to do with soil hydration. If I'm off then feel free to correct me. But I don't think I am.

Here's an example; trees with lots of water in the soil constantly will not have their roots go very deep. And you'll hear of wind storms knocking these trees over easily. But then you hear stories where the unwatered trees won't go down in the storms as much because they had to put down roots to go deep to find water.

So i think if the water cycle is like less numbers of days per week active but still has water they will be forced to make their root deeper. But a short water cycle where they get small amounts of water, but many times per day makes it so they don't have to make their roots go deep.

That's what I think on this.

But hard compact soil, which is clay soil or with too much rock in it will make it so root vegetables sometimes can't go deep into the soil. And often you'll see them growing up instead of down, and it makes the tops of the carrots or beets poke out above soil and then become vulnerable to insect damage.