Staying Power
We planted beets right before our big family vacation last June, and they straggled and struggled along all summer. I never got around to using them in the fall, and actively began ignoring them come winter. They survived some significant week-long freezes, and a couple good snows to boot.
I finally decided to pull them up and see if there was anything worth saving, and it turns out that beets are pretty darn tough in the ground. We cooked up a batch of golden beets for a salad a few weeks ago, and today I pulled out the fancy candy-cane striped Chioggos to roast for Robbie’s 3rd birthday party. After paring off the gnarly skin from the tops, they look as good as new.
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
I haven’t tried growing either of those varieties yet, although I’ve been considering it. Should I?
They are both slightly more mild than the standard red beets, with the added benefit of not contaminating everything they touch (including your hands) — I’ve had a lot of pink dishes due to the inclusion of beets as an ingredient.
I really like the Chioggo beets, but the red stripes do fade quite a bit when you cook them, so some of the effect is lost.
For flavor, they are both excellent — like I said, more mild, with a nice sweetness, and without that sharp bite that beets can have.