How Do Cardboard Modular Trays Work?

So this morning we’re going to show how to sow beetroot seeds and we’re going to set them in these little cardboard modular trays. The idea of these are that the beetroot will grow and gradually the roots will come through the cardboard container and you can, you’ll be able to plant the little module straight into your garden. And they’re quite inexpensive these, easy enough to buy. You can make you’re own out of newspaper, but it’s quite a fiddly job. The thing about these modular cardboard trays is that you can cut them to fit the whole tray.

So I’ve got three full trays in there. What I’m going to do is I’m going to cut this. Because what I want to do is make the most of this plastic tray, now we’ve picked a plastic tray that hasn’t got drainage in it because it’s going to be a bit like hydroponics.

So the little cardboard modules will sit in a little bit of water so that they’ll soak up the moisture and water the beetroot seed and they’ll keep it, keep it moist. You can use it for other veg as well. I mean, you could set leeks, any veg really.

When to Sow Beetroot Seeds

You can sow beetroot in your garden at the end of March, April time, because it’s just the end of February and it’s quite still quite cold out, they might struggle to germinate if you’re setting out in your garden now.

And if we had a frost, it might. The young seedlings, it might damage them or kill them. So what we’re going to do is set them indoors about a month, six weeks early, and that just gives you longer for them to to germinate and to grow on.

And it gives you a longer growing season. Yeah, which is quite good for doing things that are tender, such as melons and that sort of thing. It’s better to get them started early and gives them a long enough season to produce the fruit or the vegetables that you’re requiring.

How to Prevent Beetroot from Bolting or Running to Seed

So I’ve chosen an old fashioned variety, it’s called Boltardy, and it’s a variety that is pretty reliable as as regards of not running to seed or bolting, which means that the beetroot itself tries to set its own seed.

So once it starts to set seed, it puts like a flower spike and you get. Like a woody stem and that woody stem goes right down through your beetroot bulb and it becomes inedible, so what you’re wanting to do is avoid that happening.

How to Sow Beetroot Seeds in Cardboard Modular Trays

Now beetroot seed are unusual in the fact that they look like one seed, but actually they are little clusters of seeds. So you don’t want to put more than one in each module. And if you stick them in the garden, you want to space them out.

Don’t put them touching as a full row because you’ll get hundreds and hundreds of beetroot and they won’t grow properly. So just put one on the top of each module. They are quite a decent sized seed so that they’re easy to to handle, even for me. Who’s quite clumsy.

Benefits of Growing Beetroot

Well, it’s quite a good vegetable to grow. It’s easy, it’s fairly easy to grow, it’s low maintenance and it’s quite productive. So and it’s easy to store as well, so you can pickle it. It is very versatile, you can roast it and we make beetroot brownies out of it.

So, yeah, it’s a very versatile crop. And the other thing about it as well is that you can eat the leaves. So if you if you pick them as young leaves, if you put those in your salad, they add a different color and a different taste to your salads. And it’s a real, I quite like it’s a very mild beetroot taste. It’s quite earthy. I like it in a salad.

I’m not being too exact with how deep I’m putting them because each seed is a cluster of seeds. I’d expect there to be at least one beetroot in each, in each in each module.

And you might get two or three. You might, might not get any. But because you’ve set plenty, I mean, you’ve got enough there for a good couple of rows in a garden. Keep them warm while the germinate. Yeah.

And then obviously they can come into the cool greenhouse, your cold greenhouse. So we’re in the last week of February now and you’ve already got some veggies that you’re going to be growing on ready to plant out around March, mid April.