Any clues to the growing conditions? Soil friability, pH (too acid), and amount of nitrogen (too much) are usual suspects.

tj

I rarely find a variety of beet that will make in 60 days under my conditions. So your location may have something to do with it. Also beets don't like crowding, need to be thinned to size up.

That was my edit I was coming to make. 9 in square foot as per spacing and sq ft formula. Maybe too many? Maybe 6 next time?

If they were all 6 inches apart, that should be plenty. But I agree that, depending where you are, 50 days won't do it. Agree about too much nitrogen. Low phosphorous is also known to produce small beets. There are lots more possible problems with nutrient deficiencies, but they mostly lead to poorly formed roots or sick leaves.

@tsugajunkie Long Island New York. 3 x 3 grid in a square foot elevated bed with 12 inches of soil depth. No clue as to acidity and ph. Soil is miracle gro potting mix. Sprinkled some of these 2 after a few months and rounds of veggies. All other veggied and greens are super happy.

Also everything I read online said they're ready to go when very shoukders are above the soil. They were pretty prominently above the soil line.

They may just be nutrient deprived. Miracle Gro potting soil and granular organic ferts are not a good combination........simply because the organics require populations of soil biology to convert them into plant accessible forms and these are just not sufficiently present in a potting soil. And the organics are slow release and are unlikely to provide a timely enough conversion even if there were adequate populations.

You would be better off using a liquid or water soluble fertilizer.

It makes me cringe to say it but I've also used a miracle grows funky blue fertilizer but sparingly

Well it's blue ;) and yeah all the organic madness. Also wifenis pregnant and in crazy healthy organic mode. I will leave the current 3x3 gold beets alone for a while longer. Will start a new sq ft of 5 beets and see if more room makes them happy. That sound like a good amount for that space?

All other veggies and greens are super happy? Any other root vegetables? Their needs differ somewhat. Your beet greens look great. And no, beets are not ready when their shoulders are above the soil. The shoulders might be real small. I never use that as a rule for pulling. I dig gently around them and assess their size.

What's "funky" about MG blue stuff? It's a fine balanced fertilizer. You'd like a different shade of blue, perhaps?

But yes, a container approach (potting soil in a raised bed) doesn't mix well with granular fertilizers. I'm not sure what 9 in a 3x3 area means in terms of spacing. 6 inches apart is fine. 4 inches is probably not.

I had the same issue when growing beets for the first time. Left them lot longer than what I was hoping for and still tiny like these shots. This time I am going to try using water soluble regular fertilizer.

Agreed, organic fertilisers and sterile potting mixes don't really go together, can be done but not ideal. It will take quite a while for the fertilisers to be broken down (by microorganisms) into a use-able form. Also those NPK ratios are off......P should never be the highest number especially in a potting mix scenario. In general, plants require most of N and K, and then only minor amounts of P along with the micros. Most problematic is that root crops usually require K the most (with N slightly behind) .....those have only small amounts of K.

Building on gardengal's comment... Did you just establish that bed this year? Is it open on the bottom and sitting on soil? It takes time for such a medium to become inhabited with the soil biology to make those types of fertilizers available to plants. If the answer to the 2 questions above is yes, then next year will be better. For the short term, to help give your wife what she desires from the garden, look for water soluble liquid ferts like fish emulsion and kelp-based products. They are immediately available. I know you invested in the others first, but just hold on to them. If your beds are open on the bottom, the worms, fungi, microbes, etc... will colonize the beds over time. If the beds are not open on the bottom, those granular ferts will not be as effective as you may hope.

But, as farmerdill mentioned, different areas simply require more time for beets to fill out. One good thing about beets is that the tops are always good nutrition. And even if the beets are left too long, or are too small, get a juicer if you don't have one. Don't drink a lot of straight beet juice if you aren't accustomed to it, but a little added to other things like carrot, apples, celery, etc... is extremely powerful nutrition. Straight beet juice is very nutritious, and there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that it is so strong it can make your stomach do funky, funky things lol. Don't be afraid of it though, just learn to use it properly.

ETA... was typing as antipodean submitted the previous comment.

Thanks to everyone for the advice here. I left the golden beets, growing in the next square ft over and growing simultaneously, a bunch more time to grow. They were also 3x3 in the square. Here are the results and I'm quite happy with them. After a quick steaming they are gorgeous and delicious. I also gave them miracle grow once every 10 days as well. You can see in the pic where they were above the soil. They were quite pronounced when finally picked.