Best flavored is the 19th century Blood Turnip, a Burpee introduction that is vended as Improved Blood Turnip or Early Blood Turnip.{{gwi:27618}}
If you like beet greens as well as the roots. Tall Top Early Wonder {{gwi:27620}}
For productivity and uniformity Kestrel {{gwi:27621}} or Eagle {{gwi:82366}}

I'll second Early Wonder for flavor. The ones that have grown best for me are Cylindra - they have great flavor and texture (as long as you don't let them get too big) and they grew very happily in my raised beds with clay-ey soil. My favorites are Burpee's Golden but they are picky about everything, including germinating.

I'll second (third) the early wonder suggestion. I've also had spottier results with golden beets, but they are so delicious I'd try anyway. I also have clay soil, but topped with purchased topsoil/compost.

I don't seem to have the best germination with beets despite all the tender loving care, soil preparation and regular watering I can give them. The ones that do grow turn out very well but my initial germination leaves some to be desired. I estimate 65% come up. Sorry in advance if this derails the thread a bit.

Fantastic! Looks like I know what I'll be trying! Farmerdill, those pictures are great-- wish I had some beets right now!

Gosh, those beets look absolutely luscious. I have clay soil, too, yutopia. The thought of those beets are probably going to push me into doing some major soil amending so that the beets have a fighting chance. Plants seem to love this red clay, but I've avoided root crops with good reason.

Beets do fine in red clay soils. Difficult to start tho, usually have to use sand or potting mix to cover them as clay tends to crust and prevent emergence.

The red beets are great, dependable and uniform, but I like cylindrical varieties like Forono for canning. At the table, we can't get enough Golden, Chioggia, and other light-colored beets, which make amazing fresh eating. They are slow and small, as precious things tend to be.

I've only grown Detroit Red, Golden and regular sugar beets.

Roasted in the oven, the sugar beets are wonderful (but eating them raw, they are just so so and also make my throat hurt.)

Eating fresh, the golden can't be beat. They are my favorite flavor.

I will try the above suggestion next year. :)

Detroit is my favorite! I've tried a lot of them - early wonder, bulls blood, golden. Going to stick with detroit now.

My vote is for 'Red Ace'. Great flavor and uniform grower.
Deeloped by University of Wisconsin. They also developed
'Red Cloud' but I find that variety too sweet in flavor for
me.

I grew 'early wonder' and 'red cloud' both a few years ago and cooked them together. The wonders have a flattened shape to the root and tasted like mud compared to 'red ace'.

I always grew Early Wonder as a kid and loved them. I guess the best way to compare is to really eat them side by side.

The worst tasting beet I ever ate 'Burpee golden'. Nice color but not sweet at all. The voles also seemed to prefer them as they ate holes thru them but ignored the red
beets growing in the very next row.

This is a timely question. I cooked beets today for the first time and loved them. They don't taste at all like the doctored up canned ones. I would love to try and grow some this fall/winter. Thanks for the advice(everyone!) and wonderful pictures, Farmerdill.

Can beets be planted now for a fall harvest?

Yes - you should be able to get a fall harvest for your beets. And with a light straw mulch, the beets should be able to be carried into fairly cold temps. They don't germinate well if the soil is really hot, so keep them covered with light soil/sand/compost mix and watered well. I mulch when they've been thinned a bit to keep them cool and they love it!

I planted Burpee's Detroit Supreme this year, and while I got a ton of greens, I got very little root, it barely made one side dish out of 10 feet of row, and the plants struggled, often topping over with their own weight and a few of them wilted and recovered a few times, might have been a pest of some kind, but they turned out pretty resilient for whatever their issues were.

Can someone recommend a better variety for beetroot? I want to grow another round for fall.