You can’t beet it…

By Selena Randall

If your garden is anything like ours, we are starting to get an abundance of certain vegetables. This month it’s beets. And this abundance of vegetables at one time can be a little disconcerting when you are producing your produce for yourself rather than relying on the grocery store.

As a child we didn’t eat beets, because my mother didn’t like them, and the only way I saw them was pickled accompanying salad. Not being a big fan of vinegar this wasn’t to my liking either. So when my partner told me he planned to grow beets I was a little nervous about what I was getting myself into.

It turns out that beets grow particularly well in the red river clay in our garden, and even out ‘thinnings’ have been on the large side up to 10cm diameter. This is without fertilizer – just home-grown compost and a little imported manure added to the soil.

Now we have grown them we of course want to avoid wasting them – I’ve never been one to throw food away in the garbage if I can avoid it, and I’m not going to compost perfectly good food.

So we are on a journey of discovery to find all the possible ways to use the beets fresh, and we may be experimenting with 3 meals a day from beets just like we have been known to do with zuchinni.

The health claims for beets are pretty impressive:

• aphrodisiac - due to the boron which stimulates sex hormones
• good for mental health – due to enzymes like betaine and tryptophan (which is also found in chocolate)
• reduces blood pressure
• cures cold-sores
• helps foetal development – thanks to the iron and folic acid
• generally high in nutrients – potassium, magnesium, fibre, phosphorus, iron, vitamins A,B and C

The option that gives you the maximum benefits would seem to be raw beets, and preferably with the skin on and the leaves too – hmmm not sure… Thankfully, it’s amazing what you can do if you juice the whole beet with other fruits and vegetables and make a smoothy. I found a whole website of recipes that included juicy fruit such as blueberries, saskatoons, strawberries, apples as well as non-Canadian bananas and pineapple. But smoothies are also good with sweet carrots, tomatoes and other vegetables. We will continue to experiment, but so far, so good… As we think about the energy use, raw seems pretty efficient – no cooking, just juicing.

The cooked options are numerous. We have some favourite dishes that include roasting the beets, and a tasty risotto with both the root and the leaves. There’s borscht too of course.

Our small freezer is stocked with soups that include beets amongst other garden produce, and we’ve been canning cooked, cubed beets for a range of uses over the winter. Canning of course is a better option from the energy use perspective because the input to preserve is a one-off whereas a freezer takes energy year round to preserve food. Plus it’s pretty satisfying seeing all those jars of different produce on the shelves of the cold store!

So a few weeks of experimentation and learning have left me less nervous about produce from my own garden, especially beets, and I encourage you to give it a try!