No, you don't need to cover them. If you planted in early May and they are about that size, sounds about normal to me. You can always add more compost or fertilizer, it certainly won't hurt them. As said above, harvest beets sometime between the size of a golf ball and the size of a tennis ball/baseball. The smaller they are, the lower the total yield, but the higher the quality. For the mangels, be sure to harvest those before they get much bigger than about 3 inches in diameter, or they will get quite tough, in my experience.

I'll be happy to make a trade with you. I have five items on your want list: Ugly Ripe, Red Calabash, Jelly Bean, Chives, and I can go with 10 Black Krim seeds too. I'm interested in: 1. Green zebra 2. Copia 3. Old Ivory Egg tomato 4. Amur Tiger tomato 7. Cantalope - Hale's Best 8. Arugula - Roquette 9. detroit red beets Check my list to see if there is anything else you'd like. Thanks!

Thanks... I guess I'll go ahead and harvest the tops when we get a frost warning. They're lush and beautiful... then add the organic matter and till it all under. I love this Global warming. Here it's the 25th of Oct. and no frost yet.

Cooking2day, I'd love to send you spare change, except I put all mine into pig feed, so I can make sausage. (grin) I get casings from Butcher-Packer, based on Detroit and price depends on size. I can get about that amount (the site says it will stuff between 45 and 60 pounds) in 20 mm sheep casings for $35.50, 22 mm sheep casings are $40.50, 24 mm sheep casings are $44.67, but the 24 mm sheep Vienna sausage casings are $60.50. The hog casings are anywhere from $3.50 for enough to stuff 25 pounds, all the way up to $25 or so for larger sausage. I'll attach a link. malna, that's funny, Elery just found that site this morning and emailed it to me, since he uses an iPod and I do better with the desktop and the BIG screen, LOL. I'm old and set in my ways, plus I can print from mine! I still need to try sleevendog's sausage recipe that I saved from the past thread, the one for boudin. Here I'm lucky. I have some sandy soil and some red clay but largely I have a nice loam, a mix of everything. Every fall I add a nice layer of cow manure and stuff from the chicken coop, along with whatever kitchen compost has been mixed in. I mulch plants with old hay, straw, chopped leaves, etc. The manure layer sits on top and gets worked in every spring before planting. I don't use any chemical fertilizers/ etc and the only problems I really encounter is potato bugs, not much wilt or other plant problems. Well, unless you count purslane and lambs quarter as problems, but I react by eating those! Annie