over wintering beets

[curlysue]

has anyone here ever over wintered beets? my son is coming home from out west in november and I would like to show him how to make pickled beets ,can I keep them that long?

[davefrombc]

They should be fine if you can keep them cool and dry, but with high humidity to prevent them from drying out . A good old fashioned root cellar would be ideal . Keeping beets require same conditions as carrots, parsnips and potatoes

[curlysue]

thank you dave going to give it a try with peatmoss!!

[Eeyore]

Depending on where you are you could also leave them in the ground until he arrives.

[klr650teach]

This reply is probably too late but I have had great success with overwintering beets, carrots, parsnips etc. using wood shavings and sawdust.

The trick I find is to start with your wood shavings. I like to get a big bag full that will be enough to do all my veggies that I am going to store and start adding water to the shavings. I ad about a liter of water per day----mix----then close up the bag with a twist tie and leave till the next day. I keep repeating this till the moisture is just right. When is it just right? When the shavings are evenly moist but not wet. Moist shavings will have a slightly cool feeling to the touch.

If you screw up and ad too much water, just leave the bag open overnight and then stir and mix again. Repeat if necessary.

Place a layer of shavings in a cardboard box the depth of a beet. Leave at least 1 to 2 inches of top on the beet and don't cut off the long root stem. Place a layer of beets on top of the sawdust ensuring that the individual beets don't touch each other. Then place another covering layer of sawdust.. Repeat until the box is full or you run out of beets. The last and final layer is always the shavings as a protective cover. They should be good till april or may if everything is done with care.

When harvesting for storage, I dig my veggies and take great measures not to nick or cut the veggies outer skin. If this happens the veggie will spoil and rot on you. If you don't catch it on time it can spread and cause the whole box to go rotten and thats just not fun. So when I harvest I pull what I'm going to freeze and I dig what I am going to store in shavings.

Teach