897tgigvib
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Rainbow Swiss Chard photo
- Thread starter 897tgigvib
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lesa
Garden Master
One of my all time favorite plants! Looks beautiful, tastes great, and super nutritious - how can you go wrong?
digitS'
Garden Master
Very artistic, too.
I can imagine that picture on a kitchen wall.
Match the pinkish purple or the green with trim somewhere else in the room
.
Steve
I can imagine that picture on a kitchen wall.
Match the pinkish purple or the green with trim somewhere else in the room
.Steve
baymule
Garden Master
I want to plant chard next spring! I have never grown it, do you think it would grow in our Texas heat? We grow our greens, mustard, turnip, collards in the fall/winter/spring because they can't take the ferocious heat. What do you do with the stalks? What do they taste like and when cooked, do they keep that pretty bright color or do they turn into a faded color? The colored chard looks so pretty in the catalogs, I want some!
journey11
Garden Master
So pretty! I grew the rainbow kind this year (usually plant the plain ol' chard). Thought it would look nice in my flowerbed. DH thought he'd do me a favor and hit the weeds for me and weed-whacked all my chard just as it was ready to pick. How on earth could anyone think rainbow swiss chard was a weed? 
Smiles Jr.
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What is chard used for?
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897tgigvib
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Baymule, Swiss Chard is one of those very versatile plants that is tough as nails in a lot of conditions.
I'm pretty sure it'll do well for you.
Swiss Chard grows more lush and beautiful in composty soil that is watered and grown as if it were Lettuce or Peas. But even with poor conditions it'll tough it out.
It seems to grow even when it does not get a lot of direct sun, but grows prettiest if it gets mostly sun with afternoon shade.
If you are growing it to be at its prettiest, a couple things to remember:
Each seed is actually between 1 and 4 seeds, usually 2 or 3, so when they are sprouting ya gotsta put the reading glasses on and pinch them to one per spot. 2 per spot is ok though.
Rainbow Chard variety is quite the deal. Some seed companies will say theirs is a carefully selected mix of separately grown colors, where most don't do that. I like the seed I got because it is the open pollinated mix, grown that way I'm sure. I have a couple plants, not yet photographed, that are growing very slow, and are smaller. Those 2 are the prettiest I think. Their color seems kind of bronzy, and they grow less vigorously, smaller. I kind of think a "Bronzy" selection, if it could be stabilized, would make a very nice variety of its own. I'll try to photograph them soon.
I'm pretty sure it'll do well for you.
Swiss Chard grows more lush and beautiful in composty soil that is watered and grown as if it were Lettuce or Peas. But even with poor conditions it'll tough it out.
It seems to grow even when it does not get a lot of direct sun, but grows prettiest if it gets mostly sun with afternoon shade.
If you are growing it to be at its prettiest, a couple things to remember:
Each seed is actually between 1 and 4 seeds, usually 2 or 3, so when they are sprouting ya gotsta put the reading glasses on and pinch them to one per spot. 2 per spot is ok though.
Rainbow Chard variety is quite the deal. Some seed companies will say theirs is a carefully selected mix of separately grown colors, where most don't do that. I like the seed I got because it is the open pollinated mix, grown that way I'm sure. I have a couple plants, not yet photographed, that are growing very slow, and are smaller. Those 2 are the prettiest I think. Their color seems kind of bronzy, and they grow less vigorously, smaller. I kind of think a "Bronzy" selection, if it could be stabilized, would make a very nice variety of its own. I'll try to photograph them soon.
ninnymary
Garden Master
I put chopped swiss chard in my chicken soup and spaghetti to give the kids another veggie.
Mary
Mary
baymule
Garden Master
Thanks for the info Marshall! I will put it on my list for spring. I have such limited space, that I plant a few of this and a few of that and somehow we wind up with a lot of good things to eat! How do you cook the stems? Can you eat them raw in salads?
hoodat
Garden Addicted
Swiss chard is basically a beet without the swelling, thus the multiple seeds. It puts all of its' growth into the leaves and only has a small storage root for next years seeds. Unfortunately they turn green when cooked but they look great in salads where they can show off their colors. You can strip the leaves off the stem and steam or boil them briefly. Keep the stems and cook them seperately in something like a caserole. Asparagus recipes work well for the stems.
