Some interesting beet data - seeds vs seedlings

[nctomatoman]

I planted 5 varieties of beets -

Touchstone Gold
Burpee's Golden
Ruby Queen
Red Cloud
Albino

15 seeds of each in 4 inch pots (so I had 5 pots of beet seedlings).

Today I potted them up and got to assess the reality of beet seeds producing multiple seedlings.

So from 15 seeds, I ended up transplanting:

19 seedlings of Touchstone Gold
26 seedlings of Burpee Golden
32 seedlings of Ruby Queen
23 seedlings of Red Cloud

and

27 seedlings of Albino....

So you can expect an approximate 2:1 ratio (well, a bit less on average) of seedlings per seeds.

And - once again, I've found that the supposedly low germination Burpee's Golden Beet germinated just fine if you plant them indoors and transplant to the garden later on. The low germination seems to happen if you direct seed into cool soil

Just a bit of data for you all to chew on! We like the beets...we LOVE the beet greens! The beets were transplanted to 50 cell plug flats - once they size up and my rows are ready, I will transplant them to about 3-4 inches apart - this results in really pretty, well formed beets.