Plant · P-253

Beet

Beta vulgaris

Beet is a fast two-harvest crop from one sowing: the root eats raw, grated, or cooked, and the leaves make a genuinely good spinach substitute, so even the thinnings become a crop rather than waste. The chemistry of alkaline clay does not bother it at all - it tolerates an unusually wide pH range and even some salinity - but the texture does, since a swollen root pushing through ground that sets hard comes out small and misshapen, so it wants a loosened, sandy bed. The tops also make solid cattle and sheep forage once wilted or ensiled, but they must never go to pigs, and the oxalic acid in them binds dietary calcium, so stock need extra calcium alongside. It bolts and toughens once temperatures climb past about 75F, so it is a spring-and-fall crop here, on a fast enough cycle to slot between longer-season roots.