Why not pickle it as well as just boil it for a salad. If you eat too much (like me) it turns your urine pink! but it's very good for your blood pressure.

You can also bake beetroot, make soup with and even jam with. This website will give you lots of info on how to cook and use
http://www.oliver1.co.uk/recipes/beetroot.htm

We eat baby beetroot raw in salads. You can also eat the leaves and of course add to your compost. Try swapping them for produce you dont grow - not everyone grows beetroot?

Thanks, Moon Grower for that link, I've saved it to have a go later.

Heron, I've have to be careful with the amount I eat then! Thanks for the warning though, you've saved me from a fright I might otherwise have had! LOL!

Drc726, thanks for your suggestions. How do you prepare the leaves for cooking? Can you give me some more instructions, please? I've never had to do anything with them before.

Balcony eat the beetroot to your hearts content... the pink urine is not a problem :-)

I just loath beetroot personally! we never grow or eat - lol

We eat a lot of spinach its rather like that and you can cook the young leaves in the same way, once cooked you can freeze it but I never have. I eat a lot of beetroot and have never had any pink yet but it can happen. ps I carnt stand it pickled.

I imagine I will still like beetroot even though I haven't eaten any in more than 30 years! I hadn't eaten rhubarb in even longer & I liked it!

I haven't eaten it pickled since I was a boy, must be nearly 50 years now! Then it was shop bought as beetroot was never cooked or pickled at home. I remember eating it in salads at school but few times at home.

It will be almost a new experience! LOL!

My mother use to boil it for hours or so it seemed! I choose them small as I think they are much better. It makes an interesting Beetroot mayonnaise too - great colour for a dip at a barbeque. I first tasted that when an oriental nurse made it about 40 years ago.

It was the smell of mother boiling the beetroot for hours that put me off them for life. You 'had' to eat what was put in front of you and i simply balked at the beetroot. A friend once accidentally put beetroot in the veg. soup she was making. One sniff and I, and her son, declined the soup!

Yes I know what you mean - mum got a pressure cooker from dad he couldnt abide the smell either!

Your talk of "smell" makes me remember the smell of "greens" cooking at home when I was a boy - used to HATE it! (Not changed much in the last 50 years either!)

Everything seemed to be cooked for so long then, my mother used a saucer in the colander to squeeze the water out of the cabbage Ugh.

Quote: You 'had' to eat what was put in front of you and i simply balked at the beetroot. End quote.

You hated beetroot I hated greens - anything green, except peas but then I've only eaten them a few times when our daughter has had us round for dinner. Up to last year I'd been able to eat a little lettuce, while each SMALL piece of leaf was accompanied by a BIG piece of tomato! Then last year I found it impossible to eat it even that way. So when I brought home one of the lettuces I'd grown on the allotment I didn't expect anything to be different. I started off by eating a VERY SMALL piece of lettuce with a couple of pieces of tomato & found it seemed to go down alright! Since then I've eaten much more lettuce than I ever have before in my life! Wonder of wonders one afternoon I was preparing dinner & when I made the salad I found we had no tomatoes - what to do? I didn't want to throw the lettuce away so, being a big, brave boy (LOL!) I decided to try & eat it on its own & guess what - no, I didn't feel sick, I managed, not with nauseas or anything, to eat it all! The first time in my life I'd ever eaten lettuce on its own!

Well done Balcony!

Thanks, Moongrower!

An update on the Beetroot. All the beetroot in the photo above has been lifted & about half of it consumed already!

I still have a patch at the top of the allotment to lift but as I've still got a lot I'm leaving it in at present. It doesn't look like it will bolt any time soon. Anyway it's called "Bolthardy! I think.