What Are Some Biennial Vegetables in the Beet Family?

Biennial Vegetables

• Typically, produce requires a few months from planting to harvesting to be ready for consumers. Biennial vegetable plants cannot be sowed at the completion of a growing season and usually require from two growing seasons to two years to produce seed. Beets and other vegetables in the beet family are biennials.

Life Cycle

• During the warmer months of the first season, vegetables in the beet family grow roots, stems and leaves. When winter begins, they enter a dormant period where growth ceases. Around the middle of October or before the first frost of winter occurs, they must be uprooted and stored in a cool, dry and frost-proof place to remain alive, such as in a cold cellar. In early spring, the roots are replanted and usually produce a first crop by the middle of summer.

Beet Family Biennials

• Some vegetables in the beet family are spinach and quinoa leaves. These are considered annuals, which produce a crop yearly. Only a few vegetables within the beet family are biennials, such as chard and sugar beets. These vegetables belong to the plant group known as Chenopodiaceae. Chard is a leafy green plant whereas all types of beets are root plants. Still they belong to the same family and all require at least two months before harvesting.

Characteristics

• Chard is a leafy plant characterized by shiny green ribbed leaves with long stems that are white, yellow or red. Planting to harvest time of chard typically takes about 60 days. A sugar beet, grown for use in sugar production, is a plant whose root produces a large amount of sucrose -- a type of sugar. During the initial growing season, a sugar beet stores sugar for energy to preserve it during its dormant phase. This sugar store is extracted after the first season of development, but the plant will still produce flowering stems and seed if replanted during its peak second season.