Echter's Plant Finder

Description:

A beautiful pickling variety that doesn't loose color when cooked; smooth orange outsides give way to intense golden yellow fine textured flesh; both roots and leaves are edible with a sweet and delicious flavor; try them roasted, pickled, raw or sautéed

Edible Qualities

Touchstone Gold Beet is an annual vegetable plant that is commonly grown for its edible qualities. The entire above-ground parts of the plant are edible, and are usually harvested from mid summer to early fall. The edible parts have a sweet taste and a crisp texture.

The plant is most often used in the following ways:

• Fresh Eating
• Eating When Cooked/Prepared
• Cooking
• Baking
• Pickling

Planting & Growing

Touchstone Gold Beet will grow to be about 15 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 12 inches. When planted in rows, individual plants should be spaced approximately 10 inches apart. This fast-growing vegetable plant is an annual, which means that it will grow for one season in your garden and then die after producing a crop. Because of its relatively short time to maturity, it lends itself to a series of successive plantings each staggered by a week or two; this will prolong the effective harvest period.

This plant is typically grown in a designated vegetable garden. It should only be grown in full sunlight. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Touchstone Gold Beet is a good choice for the vegetable garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing the canvas against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.