Discussion: beets already?

How did you get beets sprouted so soon? I put some out 3-4 weeks ago and no sign of them yet. I'm planning a separate bed for beets and carrots this year, but its not in yet. Probably this weekend - I have to cut turf to put it in.

My seedlings look rather sickly after I potted them up this weekend. They've just been on a heating pad under a light in the cold, dark basement though. Up in the sunroom now - which is warm enough finally - but the cat also likes that room and he likes to eat seedlings. Removed the leaf mulch from the allium beds this weekend. The garlic is 6" tall already with 3-5 leaves. 92 garlic plants and all came up...although one looks like a shallot (wonder how that happened :). The fall-planted onion sets are mostly up, the spring planted ones just starting to peep. Shallots are all up, but they were languishing under the leaf mulch. Weaklings!

Turns out I don't have beets sprouting already! I've just been hunting around the garden. I found out my compost has a load of sycamore helicopters in it that have started sprouting, and these are the tiny bits of green that were shooting through. I've rooted 4 or 5 of them out in the last hour! So no, no sign at all of beets. I'm pretty glad therefore that you've not seen any either!

My leek and onion seedlings have been out for a week now, and though they don't seem to be doing much yet, they haven't died in the three nights of frost we just had, so I'm counting that as a win! Tomato seedlings loving the sunroom and peppers finally starting to sprout a few genuine leaves. My broccoli is currently out for a couple of hours real sunshine as it's looking a bit spindly.

Despite the seedling successes so far, I'm desperate to see something I've purposefully put there actually appear in the beds! The weather seems to be taking a turn for the better now, so I'm hoping it won't be too long.