Harvesting Beets

We have been harvesting a few beets here and there and cooking them, but with the weather really warming up, it was time to pull up all of the remaining beets on the row.  We'll I'll likely replant the row with beans or purple hull peas.  The beets were of the Bull's Blood variety and we like the deep reddish maroon color of the leaves.

Bull's Blood Beets

Beets are really easy to harvest.  All you do is grab the leaves and with a swift tug, the beet root pops right up out of the ground.  While carrots have a long, skinny root, the beetroot is similar to a turnip - fatter and shallow.  In no time I had a bucket full of beets and that signified the end of the beet season until later this year when we'll replant.  Of course I threw some of the beet greens to the cows who were standing nearby.

Bucket of Beets

We eat beets many different ways.  We'll steam them, roast them in the oven, pickle them, and eat the leaves in salads.  Beets are so good for you and are loaded with vitamins and minerals, but I wasn't thinking about healthy eating when I was first introduced to beets.  I was a kid and when we would eat Sunday lunch at my grandmother's house, she ALWAYS served pickled beets as a side dish.  We would eat them up.

Today for lunch we're just going to steam up three of them.  It's easy enough, all you have to do is get out a potato peeler and peel the beets.  When you do this, you expose the red coloring of the beets and it will stain your fingers red.   Then we slice the beets in about quarter inch slices so that they will cook quickly.

Peeling the beets

Add the sliced beets into a pot with a little water and salt and let them cook on the top of the stove for a little while until they are fork-tender.  

Steaming the beets

We ate these beets for lunch today.  Delicious and Nutritious!  Tomorrow we'll show you one other thing that we make with beets that's kind of interesting.