Ms. Han Solo the Beet

Ms. Han Solo was my first beet.

Well, I mean, she was one of dozens, from the first batch I ever planted of beet seeds, which was about three years ago, I think.

Planting beets was a whim that came out of nowhere and I did absolutely no studying ahead of time. Put seeds in dirt, add water. What more do you need to know? Maybe if I’d read the instructions, I’d have learned that beets prefer to be sown directly into the earth outdoors, not started in ridiculously oversize bucket-pots inside your house (root vegetables don’t like to be transferred), but that’s what I did.

There were more beet sprouts than there was space in the one grow box that I had cleared of weeds, so Ms. Han Solo was given a flower pot and so named because she was the only one to get this special treatment of becoming a pet indoor (and later on, outdoor again) potted plant.

Over the last three years she grew, she matured, she produced a cartoonishly tall (and vaguely obscene) stalk that then covered itself in fluffy little green cotton flowers. The stalk collapsed under its own weight and the tender nubby buds hardened into little brown nuggets and today I googled “Harvest beet seeds?” which told me that, yeah, that’s a thing I could do now. I mean, I only read that little excerpt from an article that google shows you on the front page of search results. I didn’t, like, actually click through and read the whole thing. So if you’re an experienced beet seed harvester and you’re reading this and you’re like “Oh my god, how did she get this so wrong? What fucking article did she read??”, the answer is that I read as much as confirmed my pre-established hunch that I could probably do this right now and I’ll just let god figure out the rest.

This morning I woke up around 5 am and after I did the dishes I needed something else to distract my brain from itself so I pruned up the dead branches on my poppies and then I looked over and saw ol’ Ms. Han Solo the Beet with her ridiculous flop-sided top mop and I thought, “Hey... is that what... beet seeds look like???” and then I googled it and you know the rest.

Did you know that this is where your beets come from? Those freshly misted big red orbs that you pick out at the grocery store and eat that night (hopefully roasted with other root vegs and Brussels sprouts, because that is objectively the best way to cook them) started out as hard little nuggets on a stalk that was disproportionately tall to its root?

Sorry, you’re going to have to sit through some artsy-fartsy photos of my beet fronds casting dramatic shadows and curling around like botanical tentacles. It’s just the way things are around here.

I mean, look at these ridiculous little turds.

This morning I went to fill the kettle and I realized a SIGNIFICANT rust bloom along the bottom, like, it’s been there for a while. After setting it where we won’t accidentally use it again, I set a pot of water to boil for my tea and then sat on the floor cross-legged while I twisted the little hard beet seeds off of their stalks with my finger tips.

The smallest fluff balls were still too soft that crushed under the pinching, but rolling a nice fat hard one between the pads of my fingers was a really unique satisfaction. If you have the opportunity to twist a ripe beet seed pellet off a stem, I highly recommend it.

Ugly little nuggets, aren’t they?

From the recycling bin I dug out an oatmeal container lid to collect my seeds. Some of them still felt a little soft, a few days in the window sill should finish drying them out, I hope.

It’s 9:20 am, my tea is cold. I’m sitting in my hammock (I GOT A HAMMOCK) with the sun finally bright enough to warrant putting on the straw hat I inherited from Lucy and I’m looking at that first grow box I cleared out three years ago, except now it’s not the only one that’s lovingly (obsessively) tended. My newest batch of beets finally sprouted just a couple days ago and I genuinely cannot wait time watch them grow.