Funny you should say that as it was doing so poorly in the Sq Ft garden compared to last year that I kept planting more.

Now I am overcome with it and my neighbours are no longer accepting donations!

I have never grown, or seen any swiss chard. It's just not common in my region. Maybe it would be good to try....

EG

I just bought some seeds from valueseeds. (They're uber cheapo, but we'll see if they're reliable...) Mine have sprouted. I saw a display of the swiss chard at the state fair and it looked amazing! I was sort of hoping it could catapult me to the farming the front yard thing... Oh well, at least it looks to be growing ok (less than 1" tall, planted two weeks ago, so, not bad).

Another nice thing about the Rainbow Swiss chard is the colours. You will get whites, reds, orange and yellows. Some dark leaves, some light leaves. It is truly a beautiful addition to the vegetable garden.

EG. It is not at all common here at all. My first exposure to growing was a couple years ago picking up plants from a nursery for 10 cents as no one was buying them.

I am hooked.

I love it in salads mixed 50/50 with lettuce. Saute in garlic with a touch of olive oil and then adding a 1/4 cup of chicken broth.

You can also use it for wrapping stuffing like you would a cabbage roll.

Use it anywhere where you would use spinach.

The stuff in the grocery store here is not fit to eat.

IT DOES NOT KEEP DRY!

I pick it directly into a container of water and it stays there until ready to use, otherwise it wilts in hours and remember I live in a cool climate.

Last well into fall and if you have a mild climate apparently it will survive the winter.

Mike - thanks for the info! I may have to plant a couple of squares early next year, and just give it a try. I may actually like it!

EG

Yeah it's something we in the south should know about because it's a green that grows in the heat. Milder than spinach and very useful in the kitchen. I've planted quite a bit and it does take awhile to really get going but when it does.......stand back the chard is growing.

However the bunnies like it so fence it.

i was wondering what you do with it. LOL i wanted to grow it, did and did nothing with it. dummy me. i didn't know if a part of it was poisonous like rhubarb or not. that's what i want to get my hands on!! some different kinds of rhubarb so i can fix the hubs some stuff. and my sil makes some great pies!! so she can give me some pointers. LOL
next year we'll do the chard in the squares and know exactly what to do with them!! HEE HEE i do want to grow LOTS of different kinds of spinach too!! :')

Grew Swiss Chard for the first time this year and am amazed!

It is very hot here early in the season so spinach does not do well. The chard never looked back...it has produced more and more and is still producing. We just processed a huge metal mixing bowl full of leaves to go in the freezer for this winter. And it was from one plant!

It does not take long for it to put more leaves up so you do not run out of fresh leaves. We also used it as wraps for meat roll ups.

I'm ordering from valueseeds.com this next spring and will plant the various colors of chard.

It is high in iron and many vitamins. I'm planning to plant container garden for my son and his wife who lives 300 miles from us...they are not gardeners so we will visit next spring to set up containers with peppers, tomatoes and chard. Chard is for Harry, their rabbit. I think I will do lettuce in one, too.

Try it, you will like it! LOL

Peggy

Another thing about chard is I tend to use the leaves more than the stalk of the Chard.

The stalk is very much like asparagus flavoured and you can treat it as such.

This post on chard got me hungry for it soooooo...
I picked a bunch of Chard today and made rollups...

Filling:
2 cups Chicken broth
1 cup rice
Boil until waters is gone but don't cook completely.

While rice is cooking:

Fry 3/4 lbs ground beef
1 med onion cut up fine
2 cloves garlic chopped up fine

add rice to meat when done...
add 1/4 can of diced tomatoes.
add 1/4 tsp Cheyenne pepper
add 1 tablespoon basil

take 12-15 large chard leaves, cut off the bottom of the stalk.

place in a sieve and pour boiling water from kettle over chard to blanch it.

take mixture off of heat and add table spoons of Parmesan Cheese.

Lay a leave of Chard out and fill using tooth pics to hold together.

Place in Pan...
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Take the rest of the dice tomatoes and put a frying pan with 1 cup of water,
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp basil
1/4 Tsp of Cheyenne pepper
1 glove chopped garlic.

bring to a boil for a couple of minutes and then pour over the chard rolls.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes.

At 25 minutes sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

MMMMMMM GOOD!
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