We love growing and eating beets on this farm. The roots are sweet and good for us, and so colourful! Deep red. The leaves are also good. People in our community LOVE beet greens in the spring. It seems to be a Nova Scotia favourite. We planted beets in our front field and they started out looking great, but a disease called Cercospora Leaf Spot moved in. It is a soil-born fungal disease that starts out causing spots in the beet leaves. This disease likes high temperature, high humidity, and long periods of leaf wetness overnight. Olivia, who is tuned into disease, pests, and weeds on the farm, told me it can be spread by rain falling on the soil and splashing up on the plants. It is also spread by people moving through the field from an infected area to a non-infected area. So if you see spots on your beet leaves, that is what it is. Another farm issue we’ve faced this year, is salt intrusion in the deep well. This caused a whole host of problems for crops we irrigated with this well water. We reached out to our friendly and knowledgeable extension agents for advice. They suggested a number of things, including removing the plastic from our greenhouses and letting the rain soak into the soil to wash out the salt. We also talked about growing crops that are not sensitive to salt, like beets and celery, in the greenhouses. We started by planting beets, and more beets, in the greenhouse, along with cukes, and basil. These beets are irrigated with drip lines on the soil surface, using non-salty water, and they look fantastic!! No overhead water splashing soil on the leaves. No visible presence of Cercospora on the leaves!! Yay! We’ll keep you posted on this little trial as we move through the season.

I also want to mention basil. We had a rough start with basil in the greenhouse. Grasshoppers were decimating our plants and putting holes in the leaves. Grrrr. I was so so determined to grow excellent basil this year. Luckily, we also planted basil in the field, and it is doing really well. We have a number of basil types: regular green Italian basil, purple basil, Thai basil, and tulsi or holy basil. The holy basil is sweet and I dry it for tea. The scent of it is very attractive and it’s fun to see people respond to it. Thai basil is very flavourful, with a hint of anise taste. I’ve had it with Vietnamese pho, but I’m sure there are many other uses for it. The restaurants love these two kinds of basil. Most people are familiar with Italian basil, which tastes quite different and wonderful combined with cheese and tomato dishes. I love it with eggs too. The purple basil has a slightly different flavour from Italian, with a hint of a taste of clove. And it is so pretty! Feel free to share the ways you use different basil types in your food in the comments, or please send us a recipe and we’ll share it.