Thinning out

One of my least favourite tasks in the garden is "thinning out". As much as you try to sow seed thinly, they are usually too close together to be viable. Beetroot have a particular difficulty in this respect. When you have one beetroot seed, you actually have about 3 or 4 stuck together in a corky cluster. So when a beetroot seed germinates you will usually have a little group of seedlings all coming up together. There is however, a very new variety called "solo" which is a monogerm variety, there being only one seed per seed.

Looking back on my blog dates, I sowed these beetroot on April 15th, so they are about a month old. The weather yesterday was perfect for thinning out, so in the afternoon when it was wet and dismal, I thinned out my beetroot. When I say that thinning out is one of my least favourite tasks, this is because it seems such a waste to pick out perfectly healthy seedlings and toss them on to the compost heap - because each little seedling is a potential beetroot! What I did yesterday was to transplant some of the plants further up the row where germination had been poor. I usually space them between 3" and 5" apart depending on how big you want them to grow. Apparently you can also eat the leaves like spinach. I have never tried this - usually because I grow loads anyway. Has anyone eaten beetroot leaves and survived??