Marianne's Response
Beet leaves look odd…??

Hi, I’m a beginner gardener, and just planted some beets back in mid-January (three pots with about two beet plants each). So far, they have been doing great, but just in the past week or so, I noticed that the leaves in one of the pots look odd…. rather than appearing green with normal red-veins, the veins seem like they are sort of “taking over” the leaf, while the color is an odd purple/less vibrant green…. can’t really describe it, but I have a picture below. Is it some sort of virus?? On the other hand, the beets in my other pot appear to be fine overall, except it seems that they are not growing anymore!! The baby leaves that do poke out just seem to stay the same length and not get any bigger…and it could be my imagination, but it seems all the leaves (even non-discolored ones) appear paler. I also noticed two have that “leaf spot” in just a few areas (doesn’t seem to be too big of a deal yet, but idk). I did thin the beets out a few weeks ago (since 3-4 plants in seed pod), and I made the mistake of pulling them completely out of the ground, perhaps disturbing the roots of the remaining plants (I made sure to water them well after, but it’s been an unusually hot month, so it seems it didn’t help much)… it just seems like they were all doing GREAT until I thinned some, and that’s when I started noticing all these problems…… do you think they also perhaps have a mineral deficiency now? Is there any way to save them?
Posted by Pepper Doss on March 6, 2019