Grow a sweeter kind of root crop
Explore an unusual addition to your vegetable garden with sugar beet, Beta vulgaris (Altissima Group). Its pale, tapered roots store natural sucrose, making it an interesting crop for gardeners who enjoy growing useful plants and experimenting with homegrown ingredients.
Why grow sugar beets?
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A distinctive harvest: Grow white roots with leafy green tops for a different garden-to-kitchen project.
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Room to experiment: A 250-seed packet gives you scope for trial rows and successive sowings when your climate allows.
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Flexible seasonal planning: Grow through spring and summer in colder regions, or consider a fall-to-winter crop in suitable mild climates.
What's in the pack
250 sugar beet seeds for planting. Botanical name: Beta vulgaris, Altissima Group. This is a sugar beet type; no named cultivar is specified. Photos show mature plants. Roots and live plants are not included.
Growing at a glance
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Light: Full sun.
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Site: Outdoor beds with deep, well-drained soil free of large stones.
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Sowing: Direct sow about 1 inch deep, initially about 1 inch apart.
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Spacing: Thin to 10–12 inches apart for larger roots; allow 18–24 inches between rows.
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Life cycle: A biennial usually harvested as a first-season root crop.
Simple planting guide
In spring, sow when the soil can be worked, around 2–4 weeks before the expected last frost. Keep the seedbed evenly moist during emergence and remove weeds while plants are small. Thin crowded seedlings early and water consistently as roots develop. In mild-winter regions, follow local planting dates for an autumn crop; a hard freeze stops growth, so this is not a reliable outdoor winter crop everywhere.
Harvest and use
Lift roots carefully after loosening the surrounding soil. Harvest timing and final size vary with climate and growing conditions. Sugar beets are grown primarily for their sugar content. Young roots and tender tops can be cooked; older roots may be fibrous and are often more useful for processing experiments than for a tender table-beet dish.
