[kath]

So today was spent pickling beets. I grew several varieties but planted a little late for the fall crop, and procrastinated about thinning/transplanting until a bit late so I wound up with lots of beets that never got bigger than an inch or so in diameter.

My question involves the hard, fibrous "strings" that run down the center of some of the beet roots. I was quite surprised at how many of even the small beets had this problem. It took me a long time to slice because of this and didn't seem to be just certain varieties, although one of the Lutz varieties* was probably the worst.

*(I purchased Lutz seed from Cook's Garden, Turtle Tree and Pinetree to compare them because I had read that the "true" Lutz wasn't easily available anymore. The ones from Pinetree and Cook's seemed the same but the ones from Turtle Tree were a completely different beet and was the one with the most strings, but maybe that's a topic for another thread.)

So the real question is whether these strings result from soil or weather conditions, watering problems, etc. or if there are varieties that don't have these annoying things. Smooth, non-fibrous beets would have greatly cut down on processing time today.