Early Wonder is the beetroot to sow when you want a crop off the bed quickly. Beta vulgaris 'Early Wonder' is a fast maturing variety with deep red, uniformly round bulbs and a sweet, earthy flavour that carries roasting, juicing and salads equally well. It is a sensible first beetroot for a new vegetable garden, supplied as a seed packet.
What it does
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Early to harvest. Bulbs are usually ready 8 to 10 weeks from planting, quick enough to fit between longer season crops or fill a gap in a rotation.
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Even, well shaped bulbs. It sizes consistently, so most of a sowing is worth pulling rather than a scattered handful.
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The tops are a crop too. Young leaves can be picked as baby greens while the bulbs are still filling, so one sowing feeds you twice.
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Low input. It grows and crops without mulching or fertilising, and stays dependable across many soils and seasons.
How to use it
Sow direct into loose, well drained soil that has been forked through, since compacted or stony ground is what makes beetroot fork and stall. Space plants 10 to 15cm apart. Sowing a little tighter and thinning as the row develops lets you pull small beets early and leave the rest to size up, lifting yield off the bed.
It can be sown year round across most of Australia, with autumn and spring the strongest windows. Sow short successive rows rather than the whole packet, so harvests arrive in usable batches. Pull bulbs small and tender, or leave them to fill out.
What it suits
Loose soil, free drainage. Vegetable beds and raised beds. The loose soil and free drainage of a raised bed produce the cleanest, most evenly sized bulbs.
Several crops a year. Deep containers and balcony gardens. Early Wonder does well in a deep pot with good drainage, and its short season means one container can turn over several crops a year.
Not for. Shallow troughs or heavy untreated clay, where the root has nowhere to go. Seed is delivered Australia wide, with delivery from $29.95.
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