Can you name this vegetable from the following clew ? It ’s associate tobeets , but we do n’t typically feed the root . The foliage can be used for salads , sandwiches , sautés and soups . The vernal parting are good for fresh eating ; the larger leaves and stalks for cookery . It thrives in red-hot and cold atmospheric condition and lives two or three times as long as other greens before it bolt . It has a mild flavor but the stems raise in a miscellanea of lemonlike colors — red , orangish , chicken — as well as white .
We sleep with this works as Swiss chard , though it ’s actually from Greece , not Switzerland . It ’s not even usually grow in Switzerland . Swiss botanist Karl Koch is said to have been the first to classify it , and it became associated with him for scholarly ground , not culinary . The name “ chard ” is a French putrefaction of the watchword “ cardoon , ” which it was often compared to because both plants have boneheaded , comestible stalks , though a Cynara cardunculus belong to the sunflower family and is more closely related to Cynara scolymus .
Growing Chard
Like asparagus , another Mediterranean native , Swiss chard can tolerate salty soil , make it a great plant for coastal gardens . One of its good quality is that it ’s a biennial , meaning that it lives longer than annual commons , such asspinach , bok choy , lettuceandcollards . In emplacement with a soft wintertime , if you establish chard at the end of summer or start of decline , it will provide you with pleasant-tasting green all through the come in winter , saltation , summer and maybe even into the next declension before it bolts .
Swiss chard can also be planted from seeds or starts a few weeks before the last freeze date in the natural spring . It may go through two summer if you keep its ground moist and cut out the flower chaff when it appears . In area with rough winters , bring down it to the earth before a killing Robert Lee Frost and cover it with mulch . There ’s a good probability the flora ’s roots and crown will survive and put out new growth in spring .
As with other veggie , chard favors copious , organic soil with a pH between 6 and 7 . It ’s slow to bourgeon , so soak the seed overnight in a trough of pee to hie up things . Because they ’re larger than seminal fluid of other leafy vegetable , embed them about 1/2 inch deep . ( pry them into the ground to the depth of about half a finger stick . ) localise seeds or plant about 12 inches aside , and apply organic mulch about 1 column inch deep to keep wet in the soil , to discourage weeds and to keep rain - splash dirt off the leave-taking .
Beautifying The Garden
In the garden , my married woman sometimes put an private chard flora at the center of a bed ofcarrotsor lettuce for visual impact . I also habituate chard in ornamental plantings ; its big leaves direct contrast with finer , fernier ones . There ’s no jurisprudence against using chard in a perennial layer or a seam of annual — it ’s middling enough — and always there for healthy snacking .
Time To Eat
Chard will produce more young leaves for salad if you keep harvesting the older leaves . If you ’re not cook them , your chickens or the red-faced wiggler in yourvermicompost binwill be glad to take them off your hands .
