Ahhh....to eat the very food you've grown. It's been pretty fantastic. My parents were gone, the food in the panty and refrigerator was at a very dismal level and yet I was still able to eat without making a trip to the grocery store! While it may not have been the most exciting meals, I was able to make a delicious beet salad and a simple lettuce, radish, and carrot salad. All from my garden! 
Here is a picture of the salad I made with the beet greens, radishes, and carrots. I probably picked the carrots a bit early, since they were only about 4 inches in length total. But they were still great! With the beets, come an insane amount of beet greens. This is something that I think I will work on slowly harvesting throughout the next group of beets. I have read that you can simply remove one or two beet green per plant without harming the growth of the root below ground every week. This will keep the overload of greens to a minimum when harvesting the beets. Since they have such a high vitamin A content, it is hard to just let go to waste. We still have a huge bag in our refrigerator waiting to be cooked up. I have found some recipes that look to be interesting for cooking the beet greens. I will keep you informed of how they fair. 
It's probably pretty clear that I had a bit too much of the dressing for the salad. It probably stemmed from not enough beets, a problem I will make sure to fix next time around. The second to last harvest of this round of beets resulted in one beet that was at least 3 inches in diameter! How fabulous! I was very proud and excited to have such an amazing specimen from my own space.
Here is a picture of the salad I made with the beet greens, radishes, and carrots. I probably picked the carrots a bit early, since they were only about 4 inches in length total. But they were still great! With the beets, come an insane amount of beet greens. This is something that I think I will work on slowly harvesting throughout the next group of beets. I have read that you can simply remove one or two beet green per plant without harming the growth of the root below ground every week. This will keep the overload of greens to a minimum when harvesting the beets. Since they have such a high vitamin A content, it is hard to just let go to waste. We still have a huge bag in our refrigerator waiting to be cooked up. I have found some recipes that look to be interesting for cooking the beet greens. I will keep you informed of how they fair.To try someting different from simply boiling the beets I tried a pickeld beet salad. I found a recipe online here. http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000320pickled_beets.php
It's probably pretty clear that I had a bit too much of the dressing for the salad. It probably stemmed from not enough beets, a problem I will make sure to fix next time around. The second to last harvest of this round of beets resulted in one beet that was at least 3 inches in diameter! How fabulous! I was very proud and excited to have such an amazing specimen from my own space. What I love most about the beets is the concentric circles found within the root vegetable. Some are lighter than others, almost to the point of white. Most are simply a lighter shade of pink, but the pattern is absolutely beautiful.
