Beta vulgaris L

[mickey]

Beta vulgaris L has any one grown them? if so how did they work out for the table?

[ozarklady]

Jim, I had to go google it... seems you are talking about beets in general?
At least that is what I got by googling it. Ha ha.
I love beets, had them for supper last night. (From the grocer though)
I bought sugar beet seeds, going to try them.
Chard always grows well for me, (same grouping).
But for some odd reason, I don't get beets on the bottoms of my beet tops... hmmm?

[mickey]

Sorry It's the sugar beets I'm thinking of. The red beets I have grown in the past tasted like soil to me.

[paquebot]

I've grown them by default. That is, I've grown mangels the past 2 years. They are the same thing but with lower sugar content. When eaten young, they are sweeter than regular beets and don't have the "earthy" taste. I grew Mammoth Red in 2008 and Golden Eckendorf in 2009.

Martin

[johno]

I'm growing Yellow Cylindra. I hadn't tasted them because I was letting the whole batch go to seed this coming spring (although it sounds like I can eat part of one and replant it, which I'll try to do). Deer found the patch the night before last and ate all the tops and parts of the roots, and pulled some up. The ground is frozen hard right now, or I would have re-buried them - I just mulched 'em good for now. Anyway, I was thinking about trying the Golden Eckendorf for comparison. These Cylindras have made better sized beets than any others I've grown so far.

[johno]

Is a sugar beet different than regular beets? Is it the same as a mangel beet?

[mjc]

Beets, sugar beets/mangels and chard are all basically the same thing...except the 'form'. Table beets are bred to be smaller/easier to handle, often come in various shades of red. Sugar beets are often large, though not as large as some of the giant mangels (fodder beets), from which they were bred. They have a much higher sugar content and often come in whites/yellows. Chard is bred for leaf production...if it has bulbous roots, they are frequently extremely tough and woody. Mangels can get very large, up around 20 lbs. They can be used for all purposes, depending on when they are pulled...including sugar production, except they have a lower content, so it requires more juice/boiling down/processing to get sugar from them.

[mnjrutherford]

I was interested in acquiring the large sized sugar beets as I am under the impression they are a good part of winter feeding for chickens. Though I would not mind playing around with getting "sugar" from them as well. Sounds like the beet I'm looking for is the "mangel"?

[mjc]

Yep...

Chickens DO like them...so to pigs.

[PatrickW]

Mangel beets are not to my taste. The idea of getting them when they're small is beyond me, because they grow pretty fast. They also just have a taste I don't like very much. They are popular as animal feed in many places, but since grain, especially corn, is so cheap and readily available, mangel beets have been falling out of favor in recent years, to the point of extinction or near extinction in many cases.

I was in Estonia a few years ago, in the countryside. I was really surprised to see red mangel beets in so many home gardens there, just growing along the roadsides. I guess before the collapse of communism this was how they fed their livestock, and many have kept up the tradition.

[mickey]

They also just have a taste I don't like very much.

Can you say what the taste was like please.
The common red beet taste like soil to me

[nuts]

beta is part of chenopodiaceae, like spinach.

I like red beets,but everyone his preferences.

I don't think mangle beets or sugar beets are often used for human food.
My parents eat them during the war,because there was nothing else to eat.

[dirtsunrain]

I found 10lb bags of beets at the grocers marked down to 75 cents. I bought a whack of them and put them in my cold storage. I boil a handful every night for my birds. I make a Duckie soup out of leftovers, veggies and grains. I think they enjoy getting a hot mash on a cold day.
The turkeys especially love them and my flock is doing very well this year. I plan to expand the forage plots next year for both the poultry and the sheep.

[PatrickW]

Jan 7, 2010 12:16:44 GMT -5 mickey said:

They also just have a taste I don't like very much.

Can you say what the taste was like please.
The common red beet taste like soil to me

The taste in general is very bland, sort of like it's the flavor of a normal beet diluted to the large size of a mangle beet.

Beyond the bland taste there is just sort of an off taste, that's hard to describe. It's not very nice. It just makes it hard to eat and enjoy for me.

I like normal beets, so if you don't like normal beets maybe you'll like mangles...

I think they really are more commonly used as animal feed.

[mjc]

I've eaten them when small...and yeah, you do have to get them early. At that size, golf ball to tennis ball, I didn't notice much difference between them and table beets. Our pigs loved them at any size.