Greens & herbs
Swiss chard
Tolerates heat and light frost; cuts all season.
- Outside
- Direct Apr to May
- Where
- Raised bed or in ground
- Sun
- Full sun; takes part shade
- Water
- Deep soak twice a week; finger test
- Harvest
- Continuous, Jun to frost
Care
- Water
- A deep soak twice a week in summer heat, easing toward every 5 to 7 days in spring and fall, with the finger test settling the timing. Beds and open ground hold moisture a long time, so let the top inch dry before the next soak. Keep it even and the stalks stay crisp.
- Sow
- Set the seed balls 2 inches apart under a half inch of soil, April or May. Each ball sprouts a little cluster, so thin twice: to 4 inches young, then a final 8 to 12 apart.
- Feed
- Chard is a hungry green: a shovel of compost or castings worked in before sowing, then a top-dress of more compost through the season. A fish and seaweed drink every couple of weeks during the heavy picking keeps the leaves broad and dark.
- Ready
- Snap or cut the outer stalks at the base and the crown keeps pushing new ones for months. When a plant gets too big to manage, shear it low and fresh leaves fill back in within a couple of weeks.
- Trouble
- Pale winding blisters in the leaf: leafminer, the same one that hits beets and spinach, so pull mined leaves early and rotate the bed. Small tan spots ringed in dark: Cercospora leaf spot in humid weather, clear the worst and water low. It bolts far less readily than true spinach.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 7–10 gal bag.
- Water
- A bag dries faster than a bed, so water every day or two in July heat, checking the top half inch. About 45 to 60 sec on the shower dial until the seams drip.
- Feed
- Top-dress monthly and keep up the fortnightly fish and seaweed drink; a bag leaches with every watering.
- Sow
- One or two plants per 7 to 10 gallon bag at the same 8 to 12 inch final spacing.
One April sowing of chard cuts from June to frost, which is the whole pitch: a spinach that refuses to bolt in July. Stems and leaves count as two different vegetables.
Growing
Sow in place in April or May, thin to eight inches, and keep cutting outer leaves; the plant rebuilds from the center all season and shrugs at August heat and October frost alike. Ordinary soil and regular water cover the rest; the stems announce a lapse by going limp in the afternoon, and one thorough soak stands them back up by morning. If a plant outruns the kitchen, cut it to a stub and it returns inside two weeks.
Varieties
Fordhook Giant is the heavy producer with white stems; Bright Lights turns the row into stained glass and cooks nearly as well.
Pests
Leafminers blister chard the way they do its beet relatives; snap off tunneled leaves and let regrowth outrun the fly, or net young plants through the May flight. Slugs work the lower stems in wet spells, so keep mulch a hand's width off the crowns.
In the kitchen
Leaves wilt like spinach; stems want two extra minutes in the pan or a quick pickle. Cooking them separately is the difference between liking chard and tolerating it.