GardenBeet variety
Red Cloud Beet
✓ In your garden
Red Cloud is a round red beet, ready in about 50 days. Roast or pickle the sweet roots and cook the leafy tops like chard — two crops from one plant. Sow the seed directly and thin the seedlings; beets like cool weather and even water.
“A sweet, earthy root — and the greens are good eating too.”
Growing basics — shared by every beet
Red Cloud grows like any other beet. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Beet page so it's maintained in one place.
- Sun
- Full Sun
- Spacing (in row)
- 2–4 in
- Row spacing
- 12–18 in
- Planting depth
- 0.5–1 in
- Soil pH
- 6–6.5
- Water
- Moderate
What is Red Cloud good for?
- RoastingConcentrates the sweetness. Great
- PicklingA classic. Great
- Raw & saladsGrate it raw, but like most red beets it stains everything it touches. Great
- The greensCook the tops like chard. Great
From how it grows — kitchens vary.
What Red Cloud is known for
Pinetree Garden Seeds describes this as:
- slow to run to seed in heat
That is the company selling the seed, describing its own product. True, and worth weighing as such.
—
Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →When to plant Red Cloud in your zone
Zone 6bGreenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around mid May, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
- Plant seeds outside
- late Mar – early Apr
- Growing
- early Apr – mid May
- Picking
- mid May – late May
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
What to plant near Red Cloud — and what to keep away
-
Cabbage familyTraditional
On the classic chart's companion list for the cabbage family.
-
Onions & garlicTraditional
Chart canon, both directions.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every beet.
Pairings compiled from West Virginia University Extension.
Growing Red Cloud — the things that trip people up
- Each beet “seed” is a cluster that sprouts several plants, so thin the seedlings to one every few inches or you’ll get tangled, undersized roots.
- Beets like cool weather and steady moisture. Sow in spring and again in late summer for fall; pull young for tender roots, or leave longer for storage.
Red Cloud beet at a glance
| Type | Round Red |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 50 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Red |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Common questions about Red Cloud
How long does Red Cloud take to grow?
About 50 days from sowing. Sow directly and thin the seedlings.
Can I eat the Red Cloud tops?
Yes — beet greens are excellent cooked like chard or spinach. Take a few outer leaves while the roots grow, or eat the whole plant at harvest.
Browse more beet varieties →