I am also prepping my beds to resow beets. I had poor germination due to lacking irrigation. Have about 40-50 beets growing from different populations but were expecting several hundreds. It is good to know several people here are working on it. How are others doing?
A few of problems here and there, but no disaster so far. I will harvest fava beans and garlic soon and sow the last batch of beets and carrots there.
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I had perhaps 60-100 beets from the Beet Grex 2026 growing from the last sowing. Very large differences in growth and it takes some discipline on my part to let the small scraggly ones grow too.
I had germination problems due to dry weather in spring so I decided to resow this week and put microsprinklers in place. Have sown the 55 variety grex as well as the subpopulations (low geosmin, high geosmin, low oxalic acid, monogerm) again plus 30 m2 of my own beet seeds.
In other news, my largest plants are of course volunteers from beets that were setting seed last year, then got eaten by deer (I salvaged a tiny amount of seed), but somehow managed to germinate and make it into beautiful plants.
My beet 55-mix seeds are doing quite well - this is one of the beet beds. I presowed them, making them less vulnerable to slugs. I might direct sow a second batch this weekend.
I intended to do an experiment to see if I can harvest, cool and replant some beets and have them produce seeds in the same season, but I don’t think that is going to work. I was too late with my first sowing. I’ll have a go at that next year.
I am wondering how I’m going to keep the beets over winter. Last winter I left some in the ground with an extra mulch layer on top but they were all but one killed by frost. The ones I kept in buckets filled with sand in the shed did well. But I don’t yet know where I’m going to put 200 or so beets. Could I pack them quite tightly in buckets with sand? Still, I’ll need quite a few buckets. Any good ideas how to do this?
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Looks great Saskia, doing work for the community! 
I think yes, you can pack them quite tightly. As for overwintering, I have mine in deep trays normally used to transport vegetables.
Like this:
That looks good! And so I guess it can be soil/compost too, not sand specifically (which is what I read somewhere). I’ll start looking for some stackable crates, which would save space in the shed. I don’t think the beets need light until spring, so that could work.
I just took whatever I had and mixed it with all the sand I had. Sand is better because of drainage.
Some pics from the beet bed today. All beds are very patchy. I direct sowed all my beets and slugs have been eating the small seedlings. But there’s still more than enough to make lots of seed and hopefully get quite some diversity - when we pool all our seed, we should probably get genetics from most of the varieties in the 55 mix.
In the second photo you can see a bit of my seed bed in the top right corner where I also have lots of beets setting seed to share with you next season.
The roots from the 55 mix are sizing up too, which will give a larger flower shoot next year.
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I have a few survivors. Maybe ten plants. I will post a picture when I’m in the garden again. I wonder if I should keep them over winter in the ground or dig up. The two survivors from last year that I dug up tried to grow leaves in the dark of my cellar and I have eventually let them dry out and die 
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I’m wondering too about the best way to overwinter roots. Beets and carrots did grow leaves in my shed too, but I also had some light come in from the roof window. Theoretically, I know it is possible to overwinter roots in complete darkness without them starting to grow. I think I might have watered them too much (didn’t want them to dry out) and possibly that they didn’t go into full dormancy for some reason - perhaps tempearture.
Anyone else got information to share for the group as we get ready for the overwintering part of this project?
I don’t have personal experience storing beets through the winter, but here’s what Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed recommends:
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In my zone 6B:
Last winter - all beets overwintered in cold, poorly insulated greenhouse successfully
Previous winter - all beets rotten in vegetable patch (not covered by anything)
So there seems to be a thin line between success and failure, depending mainly on the winter temperatures.
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I harvested all the beets for this project last week.
Most of the roots from the 55 variety mix that will become a grex next year by crossing. Most of them are red, with some orange, yellow, chioggia-colored and whites in there too. Most of them are round, with some long ones too. And some smaller sowings with low geosmin, high geosmin, low oxalic acid and monogermic varieties isolated from each other (in the smaller cases).
I fertilized the soil this year and some of the beets got gigantic. I expect them to set a lot of seed if overwintering goes well. I’ve stored them all in sand and coco coir in a shed now.
