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my beetroot at my allotment have come through in clumps. They will need thinning but can i use the thinnings further along the row where they have not germinated. do some people start them off at home and transplant them or do beetroot not respond well to this any ideas

its one of those plants that like to be transfered but no harm in trying you might get lucky

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Slooky, the more trad gardening books will tell you that beetroot don't transplant and the standard way is (was) to sow in drills and thin out, disposing of the thinnings. But you'll find many people on this List, including me, start them off in modules and then plant once established - the module technique allows you to do this with minimum root disturbance which seems to be the key. So module transplanting fine and dandy and likely to be successful. Transplanting thinnings however is more problematic. I suspect the reason thinnings don't take too easily is that although the bulk of growth - i.e. the beetroot - swells up near or on the surface they have one set of feeder roots (sorry, don't know the tec term, it's not quite the same as a tap root) that goes deeper and this is obviously greatly disturbed by attempting to transplant thinnings.

One other thought... Beetroot seed are fairly easy to handle so not difficult to plant singly but if you happen to get a pair or more they will happily push one another aside. How many in your "clumps"? - if 3 or 4 and they've got space around them they will do this and then you can gently extract some when of usable size and let the others grow on.

bb

Also, I think you'll find beetroot seed are more like a 'fruit', in that it isn't a true seed, because you get several seedlings from each one.

This is why it's a good idea to plant them quite thinly and sometimes why they appear to grow thicker than you actually planted the 'seeds'.

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Our books say that no root veg should be transplanted because of possible root damage.
However we have used a few beetroot thinnings as transplants before and had good beets from them.

We usally leave the seedlings to get to about 2 inches high before thinning them for transplanting though.

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I have often transplanted beetroot without any problems. Make sure you don't damage the roots and make a nice deep hole for them to go in, water well for a few days. Unless you are going to sow some more seed you have nothing to loose.

Ian

you always get more seedlings that you bargain for with beetroot. I think there is a beetroot called Solo(??) where you will only get one seedling from each seed sown, so saving you having to thin them out. I've got Boltardy again this year and may try module sowing as others have suggested

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I ended up with loads in a pot (and another pot to do). Wasn't sure what to do with them but on the basis that they were wasted anyway, I dug a small V shaped trench, carefully separated the seedlings and laid them against the trench wall as tall as they would go and then back filled and gently firmed in straightening them as I went. They are all standing up like little soldiers! I don't know whether they will be edible but they look good on the plot, a nice neat row. Nothing ventured - nothing gained. Life's a gamble eh? Sanjo