By clicking a retailer link you consent to third party cookies that track your onward journey. If you make a purchase, Which? will receive an affiliate commission which supports our mission to be the UK's consumer champion.

How to grow beetroot and best varieties

Once the sole preserve of pickle jars, beetroot are now seen as a modern superfood. Discover our Best Buy varieties and learn how to grow them.
Ceri ThomasEditor, Which? Gardening
Beetroot

Beetroots are easy to grow from seed outdoors. They can even be grown in a patio pot if you don't have a garden.


Breathe new life into your outside spaces. Sign up for our Gardening newsletter, it's free monthly


How to grow beetroot: month by month

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJune

SOWINGSOWINGSOWINGSOWING/HARVESTINGSOWING/HARVESTING
JulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember
SOWING/HARVESTINGHARVESTINGHARVESTINGHARVESTINGHARVESTINGHARVESTING

Full testing results for beetroot

Which? members can log in now to see the full results and a detailed review of our Best Buy varieties. If you’re not a member, join Which? to get instant access.

Variety name Overall ratingGermination of seeds Yield: baby beets Quality: baby beetsYield: mature beets Quality: mature beets 
'Action'
'Albina Vereduna'
'Bettollo'
'Boldor'
'Bona'
'Boltardy'
'Bull's Blood'

Yield: weight harvested from a 2m row. OVERALL RATING Ignores price and is based on weight of baby beets 25%; quality of baby beets 25%; weight of mature beets 25%; quality of mature beets 25%.

Magazines

Which? Gardening Magazine

Expert advice through the seasons so you know what to do and when. £4.99 a month, cancel anytime.

Join now

When to sow

Late February is a good first sowing time in the south of the UK, and around mid March further north. These sowings are made indoors in module trays, using a Best Buy compost for sowing seeds. If you prefer to sow seeds direct in the soil outside, then wait until mid-April.

A second sowing in early June will give you harvests from September and into winter. The last sowing date in the south is early July.

If you sow direct into the ground, space seeds around 5cm apart in rows 30cm apart and around 2.5cm deep. Alternatively, sow in large modules in the greenhouse, around four seeds per module.

Try a Best Buy pop up greenhouse

Caring for your plants

Planting

If you’ve started your beetroot in modules, plant out in clumps once the seedlings have several pairs of leaves. They can be as little as 30cm between clumps for small to medium size beetroots. For larger roots and beetroot to store in winter, allow 35 cm between each clump. Beetroot will happily push each other apart as they grow so there’s no need to thin them out – thinning will happen naturally as you start to harvest.

Be comfortable with a Best Buy garden kneeler

Watering 

Remember to keep the plants well watered during dry spells. Plants growing in well-drained soils will need more frequent watering or the crop will be small.

Try a Best Buy watering can

How and when to harvest

Harvest in: May to December

Beets are ready when at the size you like, even golf ball size as early as May. From multi-sown clumps, twist out the largest one of each clump, leaving the others to grow more. You can return many times and over two months or more, to the same block of beetroots, from one sowing date.

Beets resist slight frost, however there is damage when it’s below -4C, mainly to beets above ground, so you can pull soil and compost around them for protection. Harvest beetroot for winter storage from late November until Christmas. Leave them dirty, allow to dry on the surface, then place in sacks or boxes. They are good to eat until April, especially large beetroots.

Try a Best Buy frost protective cover

Common growing problems

Birds

Birds can attack the beetroot leaves so cover all early-spring plantings with fleece. This can come off by early to mid May, after which no protection should be necessary for those plants. 

Read more about protecting from birds.

Leaf miners

Beetroot leaves are sometimes eaten by leaf miners, resulting in distinctive blotches of pale yellow in the leaves. However when growing conditions are good and the soil is healthy, you should not suffer only minimal damage.

How we test beetroot

We grew 18 varieties of beetroot at our Capel Manor trial gardens in north London, including some previous Best Buys, newer varieties and a few unusual non-purple types. In April, we sowed our seeds four per module in trays in the greenhouse. We recorded how well the seed germinated, then grew them on for four weeks until they were large enough to plant out. They were planted around 25cm apart in a 2m row for each variety. We harvested and weighed the first baby beetroot when they were around the size of a golf ball and continued to do so, thinning each row evenly, until there was one plant every 10cm. These were left to grow into mature beetroot, around the size of a cricket ball. The baby beets were assessed for sweetness using a Brix test, which measures the sugar content of juice from the roots. Perception of sweetness can be affected by other flavours when you actually eat something, so the Brix score is a guide rather than an absolute measurement of eating quality. A panel of tasters roasted and ate the beetroot, recording what they thought of the flavour and texture.