Baby Ball

'Baby Ball' is Renee's Garden's mini beet, grown from seed the company states it imports directly from Holland, where small whole beets are an everyday kitchen item. The whole premise of the variety is that it is meant to be picked tiny — roots are harvested at 1 to 1½ inches across rather than grown on — which puts it in a different category from an ordinary globe beet simply pulled early. Rohrer Seeds, which resells the Renee's packet, prints 50 days to harvest. Its purpose is whole pickling and quick whole cooking rather than storage, processing or bunching, and packets are sized for home rows at roughly 190 seeds.