Beets do better for me in the spring. Too hot for consistant staring in late summer and they need to be started in early September. Planted in February, they do nicely in spring. Beets are not demanding, they do dislike an acid soil, but tolerate widely varying levels of ferility. They do need full sunlight to develop. No shade. Blood Turnip Crosby's Egyptian Early Wonder Kestral

They are mothballs, but they were taken up within an hour of putting them down. I planted garlic next to them and I'm sure they would have poisoned my root vegetables and edible lettuces nearby. I have some other sprouts that look more like the marigold leaves on the second set of leaves, so these maybe maple. I just didn't want to pull them up as a weed if they were my marigolds. I planted some last year and none sprouted, now I see a variety of new shoots resembling those more in the picture of the real ones, not those in my yard. Do you really think they could be maple? The leaves don't look like maple. I did get some leaves from my dad's yard and he's got lots of maples.

Today I just sent vacuum packs to Jesky (the original trade), Grdngramma and Fluffybonbon. I ended up picking up the shovel again and finding enough nice roots with crowns for Debi too -- and will be working on completing a trade with her on that one soon. While I was out -- I also dug up some extra root and have a nice sized pack already sealed up for ONE last trade. These roots do NOT have crowns, but they are perfectly fine for propagating. You plant them a little differently and roots will start in multiple places along each root you plant (this is why you NEVER want to rototill a horseradish patch -- every little chunks comes back another root). So if antiqueorchid wants these roots -- that cleans me out! I had posted a request to be adopted as a newbie when I first joined -- but after this flurry of trades, I don't think that will be necessary. If all goes well, I think I'll have a great start!

Sorry DL, but I can't agree with you on this one. I think root crop discussions belong in the vegetable forum. I realize that tomatoes, hot peppers, alliums and legumes have their own forums, but there is tremendous specialization within each of those categories and there are many who specialize in growing them. Not so much for root vegetables. In fact, the allium forum can be slow at times and even the hot pepper forum tends to get a bit redundant. Jim