Lutz Long Season Beet Heirloom Seeds

Grow sweet roots for your kitchen and generous greens for the skillet with Lutz Long Season. Also known as Lutz Green Leaf or Winterkeeper, this open-pollinated heirloom is valued for its reddish-purple roots, tender flavor, and storage potential. Its large, glossy green tops make it a useful dual-purpose beet for gardeners who want more from each planting.

Why Grow Lutz Long Season?

• A classic storage beet: Winterkeeper earns its place in fall harvest plans, with sound roots suitable for cool, humid storage.
• Room to size up: Roots can reach around 6 inches across or larger under good conditions while retaining desirable sweetness and texture. Quality still depends on moisture, soil, harvest timing, and weather.
• Sweet purple-red roots: Enjoy roasted wedges, cooked beet salads, pickles, or colorful soups.
• Generous edible greens: Large glossy tops are excellent sautéed or braised; younger leaves can be harvested selectively.
• Flexible harvest: Pull smaller roots for fresh meals or allow well-spaced plants to develop larger roots for fall storage.
• Open-pollinated heirloom: A traditional variety for gardeners interested in seed saving, with a biennial seed-production cycle.

In the Kitchen

Roast Lutz roots until tender to bring out their sweetness, then serve warm or chilled in a salad. Simmer into soups, steam for a simple side, or use in your favorite pickling recipe. Cook the greens with garlic and olive oil, or braise them with a splash of broth. Harvest greens lightly when growing for large roots so plants retain enough foliage to keep developing.

Planting and Growing

Direct sow in spring when soil is workable, generally 2–4 weeks before your average last frost. Sow approximately ½ inch deep in loose, fertile, well-drained soil. Keep the seedbed evenly moist through emergence. Beet seed clusters may produce more than one seedling, so thin carefully.

Allow 4–6 inches between plants, using the wider spacing for larger storage roots. Full sun supports strong root growth; light partial shade is also possible. Water consistently and keep weeds from competing with young plants.

For square foot gardening, use 4 plants per sq ft (thin to 6 inches for large roots). Plan summer sowings for a fall harvest using your local frost dates and allowing extra time as growth slows in autumn, rather than relying on one July planting date for every region.

Harvest and Storage

Begin checking roots around 70 days from sowing. Smaller roots can be harvested earlier; large storage roots may need longer. Pull sound roots before the ground freezes hard. Remove the tops, leaving a short stem stub, and store roots cool and humid without allowing them to freeze.

Mulched in-ground holding can extend harvest where winters and soil conditions permit, but mulch does not guarantee protection through severe freezes. In colder areas, lift roots for protected storage rather than counting on winter-long digging.

Maturity: Approximately 70 days from sowing; larger roots may take longer.
Roots: Reddish-purple, round to top-shaped; capable of sizing up to around 6 inches or more under good conditions.
Greens: Large, glossy green leaves for cooking.
Best uses: Fresh cooking, roasting, pickling, soups, cooked greens, and winter storage.
Life cycle: Cool-season biennial usually grown as an annual for roots and greens.
Botanical name: Beta vulgaris.
Seed type: Open-pollinated heirloom, non-GMO.
Packet: 4 g / approximately 220+ seeds; counts vary naturally by lot.

Packed and shipped by Box Garden Seeds LLC — heirloom seeds grown without GMOs, selected for your garden.