Beetroot is a cultivar of Beta vulgaris mostly grown for its swollen taproot (other cultivars are predominantly grown for their leaves e.g. chard or leaf beet).

Being Australian, my favourite way to eat beetroot is as pickled slices in a hamburger served with egg. 🙂

You can also boil, roast and puree it and it teams up nicely with carrot and celery.

The leaves make a great flavour and colour addition to salads and sandwiches. Indeed I mostly grow beetroot for this reason.

Dried and powdered, the roots make for an amazing natural food colouring for curries or a healthy snack if left as a chip shape.

It is a herbaceous biennial but if grown for the root you will be planting and pulling after a couple of months.

Taste/Aroma:

The leaves taste like spinach. Raw, the roots taste and smell earthy. I don’t really like them raw finding that they sweeten with cooking.

Leaves:

Root:

Planting/Care:

Please see the link at the bottom of the page for when to grow this plant in my Grow It Perth calendar.

Beetroot loves a Mediterranean climate like we have in Western Australia but isn’t so keen about us during the peak of summer. Find a slightly alkaline sunny spot that is well draining and organically enriched.

Related Links:

• see more beetroot posts here
• go to all meal ingredients here
• go the Grow It Perth calendar
• see a work in progress map of edible plant species here

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