Kitchen Garden Forum

Swiss Chard
Beta vulgaris Cicla
A member of the Chenopodiaceae family. Chard is an excellent all rounder, tough, reliable and productive throughout the year, making it an excellent choice for a food producing garden. The leaves can be used like spinach and ribs are an excellent vegetable in their own right.
Some varieties such as Bright Lights are exceptionally pretty.

History
The cultivation of chard dates back to classic antiquity. The Greeks and Romans used it widely but it did not become popular in Europe until the middle ages.

Site & Soil
Swiss Chard is tough, tolerant of poor or sandy soils, shade, heat and temperatures down to –14c

Companion
Chard is said to grow well with carrots, cabbage, beans, radish and turnip/swede.

Germinates 7-15days.

Propagation
1. Sow in situ in drills 1-3cm deep, in rows 30cm apart. Thin, when the seedlings have 4-5 leaves, to 15-22cm apart
2. Sow undercover in cells and transplant after 4-6weeks in blocks 22cm apart or rows as above.
3. Sow 3-4 seeds in stations 20-25cm apart in rows 45cm apart
4. Broadcast sow in 10cm wide drills and treat as a CCA.
5. Succession sow throughout year

TIMING
Sow
(Feb) March-June
April-July (summer vars)
August-Sept (Oct)
Succession
Harvest
(May) June - Nov
Dec - April
all year

Crops in Spring 60 days Summer 45days

Care Best grown in temperatures between 10-25c in well manured soil. Water well in dry weather, mulch with compost or other organic material to conserve moisture in summer.

Harvest
1. by cutting outer leaves just above ground level from several plants rather than completely stripping one. JB wrote Every now and then I have a picking of the older leaves which encourages the better young leaves to grow...
2. JB wrote Harvest young leaves when the plants are about 4 inches high. Simply nip the root off and cook whole. It doesn't take too many to make a meal. [/color]

Nutrition
Chard is rich in Iron and Vitamin A as well as a usefull amount of Vitamin B & C. JB wrote It also has no Oxalic Acid content unlike spinach.

Varieties Recommended
Verte a Carde Blanche
Classic French variety with green leaves that can be used like spinach and thick white midribs. Most popular grown in France during the summer as it is resistant to heat.

Bright Lights
A swiss chard with bright colourful ribs in red, yellow, white, pink and orange and a mild, sweet flavour. It will overwinter outdoors in mild areas or undercover to provide leaves during winter and into spring.

Lucullus
The ribs or petioles are pale green 2-3cm wide with deeply savoyed mid-green leaves.
Alison wrote - Very thick mid-ribs ...with a unique flavour ... Very delicious just cooked slowly in butter, or you could put them in cheese sauce and gratin.

Swiss Chard
Need info on this ...but i think the basic variety is in fact what the french call Verte a Carde Blanche which just means green with a white stem and appears to be the same as the 'Swiss Chard' listed in the Organic Catalogue.

Excellent posting. Very easy to follow and very useful.
Additional comment:
I grew Chard Lucullus (I think it was) in 2005, which had very thick mid-ribs which I cooked separately from the leaf element. They had a unique flavour - very difficult for guests to identify! Very delicious just cooked slowly in butter, or you could put them in cheese sauce and gratin. Then I couldn't find Lucullus, so this year I grew ordinary chard, which did taste nice, but the ribs were not as thick so it was not as easy to serve them separately.
Which are the varieties that other people have found have the thickest ribs? That's the one I want! I have not seen Verte a Carde Blanche in any of my catalogues, and Lucullus now seems hard to find as well.
Alison.

I have said this before, but at the risk of boring some people, Swiss Chard is a major crop all year with us. I tried all that I could find then noticed that among the seedlings in a bog standard packet of seeds a certain number of seedlings had pink stems, these grew into the best plants of all, dark green leaves and thick pure white stems. It outperformed White Silver in a carefully arranged trial alongside and we now depend solely on that strain, reselected if necessary.
Allan

Thanks Alison.
I actually have a packet of Lucullus left over which i won't be using if you want them happy to post to you they exp. Aug 2006 but would still be worth a try i got them from T&M a couple of years ago. Shall i add Lucullus to the varieties list i did not add it before because i did not like it as much as Bright Lights and the French one another good one with thick white ribs is Zilver(organic) from unwins

We grew some this year - I don't know the "type" but assume it was Bright Lights, as the stems are the most wonderful colours. Not sure where I got the seeds from either - might have been a freebie with a magazine? It grew wonderfully - it is the only veg. in the graden at the moment. The problem is that - after growing it - discovered that we don't like it!

Is Bright Lights or Rainbow Chard a mixture of seperately raised colours, reason tells me this is the most probable. The bright red is easily seperated also the yellow can be picked out at the seedling stage but it does not have the same vigour as the others, The pinkish ones seem to be the other ingredient and could possibly be mutants in a seperate group. We were selling mixed packs of leaves but the extra work at the packing stage did not justify the premiun on selling a proper balanced pack. I now have 6 unopened packets of seeds that are destined for the dustbin.
Allan

Hi CJ,
My personal preference is for the original just straight Swiss Chard.
I module sow those that are to produce leaves virtually most of the year and I also sow direct for very young leaves that I commence pulling whole when they are about 4 inches high. I simply nip the root off and cook whole. It doesn't take too many to make a meal. When they are this size I simply cannot have too many. My Vegetarian friend loves them raw but I always steam mine.
With the plants that are transplanted for leaf production I feel one of the reasons Zena may not like Chard is because she has been taking the old hoary leaves to eat. To my way of thinking you should only been picking the younger freshly grown leaves and the old ones committed to the compost heap. Every now and then I have a picking of these older leaves which encourages the better young leaves to grow. They make good compost.
One thing CJ is that I never sow as deep as 3cm and
probably no deeper that 1.5cm. Certainly those module sown only get about .75cm depth. However I very much doubt that it makes that much difference.
The Chard's sliced and diced mixed with onion, leek,
celery and garlic cooked and then bound up in a cheese sauce and them covered with grated cheese finished off under the grill until golden brown and served with the green steamed is certainly quite a favourite of mine.
Enjoy,
JB.

Thanks CJ Some useful info there - not sure how best to go about collating but will cut and paste in and see how that goes.

Swiss Chard (also called Poree or Blett in French is very popular in France much more so than in England, there are often several varieties in the veg markets so i have mostly grown from french seeds. I will try and find an original chard with no name to try sounds like it would be worth it. Any suggestions re a seed supplier?

Zena I agree with CJ on the matter of taste i have 3 or 4 good recipes on my website for chard chard sautee with anchovies, Kashmiri style greens, chicken and spinach (chard) curry that i can think of -type in chard in the search and you'll get them and any other recipe or posts about chard it may help and you might discover you do like it.

I do like the taste (i think that may be aquired)and use the great big stalks and leaves as well. But the smaller younger ones are definately nicer.

Sowing depth
Your right JB it is a bit deep - i'll adjust the profile post - i sow that deep because we have sandy soil and dry weather as it seems to help but unless you have these conditions it should probably not be so deep.

Allan will look into origins of bright lights. On my soil the yellow and red are just as vigorous if not more so than the white it must depend on the varieties in the mix. Will post a photo.

I have put the info in JB as best i can let me know if it is ok.

One reason i posted Swiss Chard is that seed catalogues and books really vary a lot on what it actually is. i.e. Chard (Beta vulgaris var. cicla), also known as Swiss Chard, Silverbeet, Perpetual Spinach, Mangold, Leaf Beet or Spinach Beet

i found some more names : white beet, strawberry spinach, seakale beet, Sicilian beet, Chilian beet, and Roman kale. the mins boggles

is this all correct ????- i've also seen Tetragon (new Zealand Spinach) listed (seeds of Italy) as Perpetual Spinach which it certainly is not.

Hi CJ,
What I also should have said is that by comparison with Spinach, Swiss Chard, known also as Seakale Beet, has no Oxalic Acid content in it's leaves which makes it, IMHO, a better plant to eat.
The earliest I can remember growing Swiss Chard was 1943 when the family received a parcel of seeds from the Canadian Wing of the family. Seeds were hard to come-by during WW2 and they sent us masses of different vegetables.
I think you will find that Perpetual Spinach is another plant altogether. I will find the scientific name if I can.
JB.

Good point JB our neighbours always throw their hands up distraught when I have rows of spinach as they also say it draws nitrates from the soil and that i should grow Tetragon or Chard instead, as it is better for you.

Perpetual spinach, which is usually listed with, or as a synonym for Swiss Chard, is another plant, but not "another plant altogether" as Johnboy suggests. Same Beta Vulgaris ssp Cicla, only smaller. Have a look at this article - http://www.floridata.com/ref/B/beta_vul.cfm

ah very interesting see also this one http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/swiss_chard.html

Hi CJ and Alan,
What a fascinating thread this is turning out to be.
It appears that Beta Vulgaris is typical to most of the beets and it depends on the variation name as to which plant it is.
So Pepetual Spinach will be Beta vulgaris with the Variation name.
Both websites give really good information. I am not suprised to learn the family name Chenopodiaceae
which ties it all in with Goosefoot, Fat Hen and the Oracs and of course Good King Harry.
Wild Sea Beet Beta vulgaris var.Maritima grows in great profusion in parts of North Norfolk and makes very good eating when picked young.
JB.

Hi JB bonjour CJ. Yes it certainly is. For more on the huge goosefoot family have a look at http://flora.ilangainc.com/Chenopodiace ... aceae.html
Happy reading.
We too have masses of wild sea beet growing on the shores of Menai around Caernarfon. It is very good in the spring - just like perpetual spinach/chard, but maybe a little stronger in both taste and texture, as you would expect.