I plant my beetroot in my raised beds these days and always make sure they have plenty of light. Beetroot likes a light rich soil so if you have a heavy one, the best way to grow beetroot is to make sure you prepare the ground well in advance in the autumn. If you do this you can leave it for the elements to make it that much more friable and at the same time remove any stones as well as weeds and their roots. It is not a good idea to add any manure at this stage because this may cause the roots to fork and ideally you need to keep the pH balance of your soil as neutral as possible.

I wait until mid spring before I sow my beetroot seeds simply because of the problems of frost. After this I sow batches of them every month right up until about the middle of the summer so that I have a salad crop.

Before I sow my seeds I soak them in water for a few hours as this helps encourage germination. I sow them in rows about 1” apart and 1” deep and I sow them in clusters leaving 2” in between each of them. Once I have got my clusters in the drill, I then carefully rake the soil over the drill so that I leave a find surface.

Beetroot normally takes up to three weeks to germinate but once they start to grow and are big enough to handle, I thin them out leaving only the strongest seedlings in every cluster. When they get to 3”, I thin out again leaving just the strongest seedling which normally leaves me with a spacing between the plants of around 6”.

Beetroot is exceptionally easy to grow and once they are established need very little care afterwards. As long as you keep them well watered in drier weather being careful not to over water as this may just give you lovely leaf growth, but very little swelling of the root, the chances are that you'll end up with a lovely harvest.

I normally harvest mine when they are around 1” in diameter and this is another way of thinning out your rows which means that other plants can really expand and grow. However, when they reach 3” is when I harvest them all, because after this they lose their flavour. I never cut off the leaves but rather twist them off just about 2” from the crown as this prevents the beetroot from bleeding. I then store these in a wooden box on 2” of dry sand and I make sure the beetroots don't touch each other. I then add more sand and repeat the same process until my box is full. I store these in a dark, dry shed and they usually last right up until the following season.