Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: MoreWhisky on May 21, 2009, 09:05

Title: Beetroot
Post by: MoreWhisky on May 21, 2009, 09:05: My Beetroot is about 3 inches high now as and as you can see in the photo has got nets over i have made. What i would like to know is can i safetly remove the netting? to use for something else.

Im not sure if the local rabbits or pidgeons would eat them? or anything else about?

(http://s550.photobucket.com/albums/ii407/morewhiskey/lotty%20in%20may/th_010-1.jpg)

At the moment i have maximum protection around everything as im not sure what doesnt get eaten by something ::).

Cheers MW.
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: DD. on May 21, 2009, 09:22: Beetroot is one of the few things on my plot that doesn't seem to get eaten. Not even by me as I can't stand it & grow it for others.

Not even our mutant pigeons touch it!
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: Salmo on May 21, 2009, 09:23: Rabbits will eat them. Pigeons probably not.
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: MoreWhisky on May 21, 2009, 09:49: yer i thought rabbits might! wasnt sure about pigeons.

thanks u 2.
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: green fingers on May 21, 2009, 19:51: I have'nt netted my beetroot. (Speak in hushed tones here) :mellow:nothing has touched it. :D
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: Ropster on May 21, 2009, 20:17: same here , nothing has touched my un protected beetroot
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: Swing Swang on May 21, 2009, 22:31: Last year I was paranoid about getting my crops eaten and covered most things in mesh. This year I haven't bothered and it's all still standing and have yet to resort to chemicals. Flea beetle a bit of a problem with the turnips, but they got under the netting last year so no greater losses this year. Beetroot, three sowings 3 to 4 weeks apart. so far all untouched.

Much easier to weed without all of the protection and the garden looks prettier too.

Cabbage whites beginning to lay though. Have decided to grow quicker maturing brassicas this year (pak choi/Jap greens/spring greens/turnip tops etc) as the amount of effort that I had to put in to keep my sprouts and purple sprouting clear wasn't worth the reward. For that reason alone I will be building a brassica cage over the next couple of seasons. Kale seems to recover from quite severe 'piller munching, so I'll live with them looking untidy.

Hopefully quick-growing brassicas will mean that I won't be bothered by mealy cabbage aphid (ha! ha! ha!), but that's not going to be solved by growing under a cage.

Fortunately I've no rabbits, and the garden woodies only seem to peck at the lawn and not the veggies (not sure why this is and I'm suire that it wont last for ever...)

Anyway, back to the question - I'd risk the beetroot without protection.

Great neat and tidy looking photo of your plot too.

Regards,

SS
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: Wombat18 on May 21, 2009, 23:49: My beetroot are about the only thing on my plot that haven't been infested, nibbled, blighted or devoured wholesale by evil smelling hordes of pigeons so you may as well go for it :tongue2:
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: Paul Plots on May 22, 2009, 00:15: Rabbit like beetroot tops - most other things that hop, fly, crawl or slide around my plot leave them well alone.

Resident fox (who helps turn over the compost heap for me) seems to be good at making sure there is not the slightest glimpse of a rabbit :)
Title: Re: Beetroot
Post by: MoreWhisky on May 22, 2009, 15:05: I do like your sign off Swing swang, very apt at the moment as sat here watching Nuremburg Trials documentary.