Puttin' Up Beets

We had two sets of drop-in visitors this morning and by the time the last left, my tummy was growling like a bear and it was lunch time. Accck, I hadn't even had time to figure out what my plan of action for the day was.

Over sandwiches for lunch, Roy suggested it would be a good idea to get the beets harvested and in the freezer while they were still tender. Umm, that's a job I'd prefer to start first thing of a morning, I thought. Then he added, "I'll help." It's a deal! Let's do it.

I planted one bed (4' x 8") of beets this year. Not quite a third of the bed is Early Wonder Tall Top and the rest is Forono. I thought I'd save the Forono for pickled beets so I went out and pulled all of the Tall Tops for freezing.

We got a wheelbarrow almost full.

Roy cut off the stems leaving 1/2-1" on the ends.

We got a 5-gallon bucket nearly full of beets. He filled the bucket with water and let them soak for a little while to get off most of the dirt while I went inside to set things up in the kitchen.

Then he rinsed each beet a bit as he transferred them to two smaller pails that I brought inside.

I washed each beet fairly well in the kitchen sink before sorting them into the different sizes.

Most of them were large, a fair amount medium, and just a few small size. The small ones cooked to 'just tender' in 30 minutes, the large ones took a little over 45.

When they were cooked, I put them in cold water to stop the cooking action and make them cool enough to handle. I could slip the skins off with my fingers with no problem. Easy peasy.

Then I cut them in uniform slices.

Roy was official packer, putting them into bags for the freezer.

Haul for the day: Twenty-three 2-serving bags. I think I'd like to shoot for a total of 40 servings (a serving being enough for the two of us) so that means we'll have to do this again using some of the Forono beets. There are plenty of them to use for freezing and still have enough for making pickled beets. Niiiice crop of beets!