Swiss Chard
I frequently recommend growing leafy greens such as Swiss Chard because they are so nutritious, delicious, and easy to grow. Often a single sowing can extend across several seasons, providing harvestable greens from spring, right through fall frosts. Even more remarkably, Swiss Chard can survive frigid winter conditions to produce additional early spring harvests when garden fresh vegetables are at a premium.
Growing Swiss Chard in the Home Garden
You can grow Swiss Chard from seed, which can be started indoors in containers under grow lights, or you can sow the seeds directly into the garden. The seeds resemble beet seeds but don’t require as much thinning. Space the transplants or thin to about eight inches apart in raised beds that have been composted or enriched with a general organic fertilizer.
The only troublesome insect pest affecting chards are leaf miners, which do mostly cosmetic damage by creating noticable trails in the leaves. For control I simply remove the affected leaves. Some years the plants go untouched by the leaf miners, but even during bad years the damage usually subsides as the season progresses.
Cooking and Preparing Swiss Chards
Swiss Chard is very delicious and can be lightly steamed, stir-fried, used raw in salads, and substituted for spinach or other leafy greens in your favorite recipes. The leaves will grow to enormous sizes but maybe used, along with the stems, at any stage of growth.
The wide thick stems can be used like celery, stuffed with a dip, or be added to vegetable trays. The best way to harvest is to carefully twist the stem off from the base of the plant.
Popular Varieties of Swiss Chard
There are many different varieties of chard. My favorites are Bright Lights and Five Color Silverbeet (Rainbow Chard). These are great because they offer an incredible range of brilliant colors from pink, red, yellow, orange, white, and striped that really stand out in the ornamental vegetable garden and can even be used in flower beds.
Other great varieties include: Fordhook Giant, Rhubarb , Pink Lipstick, Vulcan, Golden, Broadstem Green, Witerbi Mangold, Oriole Orange, Golden Sunrise, Virgo, and Canary Yellow Chard. There’s also a cultivar called Perpetual Spinach, which is also a variety of Swiss Chard.
For more great tips to creating an attractive vegetable garden check out the “Amazing Secrets to Growing Luscious Fruits and Vegetables at Home.”
Other Related Vegetable Gardening Posts:
- Bright Lights Swiss Chard
- Growing Beets
- Tough Growing Conditions
- Choosing a “Fav Five” of the Garden Variety
- Fall Gardening
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November 6th, 2005 at 11:01 am
A man after my own heart. First the shallots and now the swiss chard. I’ve grown this for the first time this year but have yet to try it. Am I to understand that the plants I planted late this summer will overwinter and produce next spring too?
November 10th, 2005 at 10:04 pm
Hi Kerry, there’s no guarantee that Swiss Chard will survive the winter, but it’s pretty hardy and it often survives here in Pennsylvania without protection. Our winters are probably harsher than what you typically see in Kentucky, so I think that your odds of the plants surviving are pretty high.
May 28th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
I have grown Swiss Chard in Houston, Texas for the first time in a container. It has done exceptionally well, I wasn’t that familiar with them and wasn’t really sure how to prepare them. Do they feeze well?
July 21st, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Andrea,
I followed these instructions last year and it came out really well for soups and stir fry.
To freeze:
1. Prepare a sink of cold water. Rinse chard through several changes of water lifting leaves out leaving sand and soil behind. Then separate the stems from the leaves.
2. Bring 4 quarts of water to a rolling boil. Drop about one pound of whole leaves in boiling water, cover and blanch for 2 minutes (blanch stems for 3 minutes).
3. Remove chard from water and immerse in an ice water bath for 2 minutes. Drain.
4. Pack in zip-closure freezer bags or freezer containers, leaving no headspace. Label, date and freeze at zero degrees for up to one year.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:00 am
I planted some swiss chard seeds about 2 week ago and this morning I went by Home Depot and they had swiss chard plants @ .99 a pot, I picked the pots that had 2 plants in each one so I feel like I got a good deal because swiss is a easy plant to seperate and I am also growing garlic,shallots,cabbage and broccoli and in the summer I grow okra.egg plants ,habanero peppers and tomatoes and herbs. I am in jawja.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am
One of the things I like most about Swiss Chard here in north Texas is that you can start it early but since it is so heat tolerant it will carry on well past the time that the lettuce and spinach and other greens have long since given out. A great choice for warm locales.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
What do you do with the seeds (swiss chard) before you plant them?
Do you break them up?
My husband did this and they did not come up.
Thanks.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hello Sue, I never break up the swiss chard seeds (or even beet seeds for that matter) before planting, and even though the seeds resemble a compound type of seed the seedlings usually germinate into individual plants that don’t require as much thinning as beet seedlings.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
If you plant the white chard with the fat stems, especially with a little afternoon shade in the hottest areas, you get two products for the price of one. The stems can be “strung” like celery, and then braised / simmered for meaty-textured, savory dish. Plain salt and pepper is enough, but they stand up to all sorts of things. Cumin and corriander…or basil, marjoram and tomatoes…curry…red peppers and coconut milk… all quite decent. You can also make refrigerator pickles. (I don’t know how they stand up to longer pickling or canning. Wash well and try.) The leaves (tough ribs ideally stripped out) can be cooked like any greens. They are not as tender as spinach or sorrel, but MUCH faster-cooking than kale or collards. Comparable to young beet greens, and with a hint of the same flavors. If you want to throw in wild greens, I seem to remember that they cook OK, time-wise, with Fat Hen (chenipodium, a common weed in most parts) or garlic mustard (a common weed in some parts). Very good for you, very yummy. Don’t cut the whole bunch at once, just keep picking stems off, and they’ll keep going until frost. Cover them (hoops and plastic) and you may bring them through several light frosts.