Leaf Spot On Beetroot

[Al P]

Hi Charles

I am pretty much a beginner veg gardener, I started late last year with a selection of your books and updates as my main guide.

Please see attached, do you know if this is (Cercospora) Leaf Spot on the Boltardy beetroots? What might be best to do with it? I notice the inner leaves on some appear ok. I am not sure if they will recover, or its best to pull them up in the longer term interest?

Some notes:

We moved into our new home in Nov last year (near Ely in Cambs).
I have gone for a ‘hybrid’ no dig organic approach. Hybrid in that I did dig the beds over last winter -for this first year, but I am not planning on digging them again.
The veg plot is at the rear of the garden and was 3 / 4 foot high grass , nettles and thistles, small tree stumps with a fair amount of rubbish last year. I cleared it and dug the borders in from Nov to about April this year.
I have created a number of beds, most (aside the asparagus bed which is 5 feet wide) about 4 feet wide by about 12 feet long.
The Toscane spinach, parsnips, onions, shallotes, rhubarb are doing ok I think.
The veg plot was 3 – 4 foot high grass, nettles and thistles, small tree stumps last year. It had been used as a general dumping ground at some stage as is at the back of the garden.
I will remove the remaining grass over the next year or as the veg plot grows.
I sowed the beetroot on 25th March – they had a set back when I planted them out- I didn’t initially do as you suggest, i.e. I didn’t fleece over them. But a couple of weeks later the birds ate a lot of the yound leaves and I then bought some fleece and fleeced them for about 4 weeks. They looked great when I took the fleece off, but now about two weeks later…

There are some more younger beetroot under the fleece on another attached photo. – these is not affected.

Any advise much appreciated.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge – I look forward to your updates.

Best Regards

Al Powney

[charles]

Hello Al and congratulations, your new garden is off to a flying start.
Those blotches are caused by leaf miners, you may even find then burrowing in between the outer sheaths and sucking the sap. Very frustrating and not much remedy I know of, some watering might help and the beetroot can still grow, also you can compost those leaves at harvest time. Miners do the same to shard and leaf beet, mostly on medium to larger leaves.
I have my beets netted against sparrows, their leaves are popular.

[Di]

Hi Al P, I had some of my leaves being chomped about as well so i used my concoction that i made up comprising 1 onion, 1 head garlic and 3 large spoonfuls of cayenne pepper, blended in water, sieved and applied to leaves with a small handheld spray device. Can substitute chilli powder for cayenne if you wish. They don’t come near it, well perhaps just the once. Leaves are now untouched. It’s become my ‘go to’ for leaf munchers, including slugs….better than resorting to chemicals.

[Al P]

Charles

Thank you for the encouraging words and the great information – as always.

And Di, – thank you too for the spicey potion – I might well give it a try!

Thanks again

Best Regards

Al

[Author]

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