Gently wash beetroots and cut some of the stalks and tails off but leave an inch or so of the top and bottom on so they bleed less when cooking.

Place all in a couple of large pieces of tin foil brought together at the top or individually wrap.

Cook in oven at about 180 C for an hour. Tiny ones less, large ones longer. Bake until tender.

20 minutes before the beetroot has cooked place clean washed jars into the oven to sterilise for about 20 minutes.

Bring a large deep saucepan of water to a simmer as you will need to process the jars of beetroot after they have been bottled.

Remove from oven and when cool enough to handle place in water and remove the skin and top and tail.

Cut into chunks for the medium or large beetroots, tiny ones can be pickled whole.

In a saucepan place the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, peppercorns and juniper berries (and mustard seeds if you like those).

Stir and bring to a simmer until all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Remove jars from oven, fill jars with beetroot leaving ½ inch headroom, (add a bay leaf if you like) pour on hot liquid from saucepan.

Clean jar rims with vinegar then put lids onto hot jars and liquid, finger tight.

Place in hot water (covered by water) and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Remove safely with jar lifter.

Set aside and leave undisturbed so the jars create a vacuum and the lid depresses.

Leave to mature for a week before using.