Beet Varieties for Mediterranean Climates

Detroit Dark Red is a reliable, versatile, heat-tolerant, longtime favorite heirloom variety that can be harvested both when small for baby beets or when fully mature for medium-to-large red globe roots. It sprouts well during cool to cold weather.

Other recommended varieties include Ruby Queen, a youngish heirloom introduced in 1957 that produces uniform, tender, and sweet roots, and tolerates poor soils better than many other beet varieties; Little Ball, grown as a gourmet baby beet; Early Wonder, an heirloom grown especially for early greens; Burpee Red Ball, a spinach beet grown for its greens; and Burpee’s Golden Beet, an heirloom grown for both its greens and its sweet roots with milder flavor.

Bull’s Blood Beet is an interesting, heat-and-cold-tolerant heirloom often grown for its strikingly dark red-purple-to-burgundy leaves, whose color intensifies as the foliage ages. Bull’s Blood Beet (say fast 10 times for tongue-twisting gardening entertainment) leaves provide beauty and contrast in the vegetable garden and salads, and often provoke compliments and conversation. If harvested early as baby beets, the roots are especially tasty and tender.

Golden Beet has a lovely buttery yellow color and a sweet, mild flavor. Chioggia or Di Chioggia is an Italian heirloom famous for its striped red-and-white interior, sweet, mild taste, and early maturation (50 to 55 days).

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