COLUMBIA, Mo. – Few vegetables elicit less excitement from the average gardener than beets, said University of Missouri Extension horticulturist David Trinklein.

Once relegated to pickling or making borscht, beet is enjoying greater respect due to its reported health benefits, Trinklein said.

Humans have eaten beets for more than 5,000 years, he said. Beets originally had long, thin roots, and people harvested only the leaves, which were used as a pot herb.

“It was not until the second or third century A.D. that cooking and eating the beetroots was described in the literature,” he said. Presumably, this referred to a fleshy root and not the long, fibrous root of early beets.

In 14th-century Europe, beets had roots shaped more like a carrot or parsnip, as opposed to the spherical shape of modern beets. The latter probably first appeared in 16th- or 17th-century Europe but still needed several hundred years before becoming a popular food source.

George Washington grew beets at Mount Vernon, and Thomas Jefferson planted them at Monticello. By the 19th century, seed catalogs featured four varieties of beets. Today’s catalogs often list more than a dozen varieties in colors including red, yellow, white and concentric or “candy striped,” said Trinklein.

The earthy taste of beets, which makes people either love them or loathe them, comes from a compound called geosmin. It’s the same compound that gives fish such as carp an earthy or “muddy” flavor. “The human nose can detect geosmin when only 5 parts per trillion are present,” Trinklein said.

Today, beets get high marks from nutritionists. One cup of sliced, cooked beets is only 75 calories. Beets are high in fiber and excellent sources of folate and vitamins A and K. They contain manganese, copper and potassium. Betalains in beets have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxifying ingredients.

Beet juice is marketed today as a natural energy drink because it contains dietary nitrates. These nitrates ultimately are converted to nitric oxide, which relaxes and dilates blood vessels in humans. The result is a reduction in systolic blood pressure, improvement of blood flow and a boost in energy and stamina in most people, Trinklein said.

Whether you want them for their vitamin-rich leaves or earthy-tasting roots, beets are easy to grow, said Trinklein. This cool-season crop prefers full sun and well-drained soil. It tolerates average to low fertility quite well. In fact, too much nitrogen encourages top growth at the expense of root development.

Beets are frost-tolerant and should be planted early in spring so that their primary growth occurs during cooler weather, Trinklein said. After establishing a good seedbed, plant seeds 3/4 inch deep and 1 inch apart in 12- to 18-inch rows. Each beet “seed” is in fact an entire ripened ovary containing several seeds, so you should thin beets after they emerge from the soil to reduce competition.

Harvest beets as soon as they are an inch or more in diameter. Since the best flavor and root color develop under bright light and cooler weather, “new” beets usually are more flavorful than those grown to full maturity. Beets that mature during warm weather have less sugar and poorer color.

Like most root crops, beets store well. Remove the tops and store only roots that are free of disease and injury. Beets can be stored for up to six months at temperatures just above freezing and relative humidity of 95% to 100%.

For gardeners looking for a challenge, the heaviest beet on record was grown in England in 2019 and weighed an astonishing 52.88 pounds.