The showy superfood that tastes as amazing as it looks
Vibrant stems of Swiss chard brighten winter borders – and if you plant seeds now, you’ll have rich pickings until spring
THERE’S no shortage of vegetable plants that provide something delicious to eat, but not many that are so easy on the eye that they could easily be mistaken for an ornamental species. One notable exception is Swiss chard, a leafy lovely eaten like spinach, that both looks and tastes good.
This head-turner forms a robust clump of thick, upright stems that come in shades of white, yellow, orange, pink and red. The vibrant colour of its shoots extends into the veins of its leaves, which are large, puckered and so darned glossy that they look as if they’ve been painstakingly treated by a French polisher.
Now is the time to start plants off from seeds that will germinate quickly to form cold-tolerant specimens, supplying pickings until spring. It’s traditionally grown on allotments, vegetable patches and in containers, but adventurous gardeners could treat them as foliage plants to inject winter colour into beds and borders.
In the same family of plants as beetroot, this showy edible derives from sea beet, a plant native to the coastline of Europe, North Africa and southern Asia. Nobody knows how it got the ‘Swiss’ part of its name, as it
It’s brimming with antioxidants and loaded with iron and vitamins
was first cultivated in the Mediterranean basin and was popular with the Greeks and Romans.
It probably arrived on our shores at some point in the late 16th Century and was first mentioned in print by herbalist John Gerard in 1596. He described growing ‘Roman beet’ in his London garden and mentioned giving seeds to a friend who was impressed by plants of ‘many and varied colour’.
The slightly bitter, earthy-tasting leaves are ideal boiled or steamed, while the stems are great sauteed, stirfried or baked in dishes such as gratins. Apart from being tasty, Swiss chard is a superfood. It’s brimming with antioxidants, loaded with magnesium, potassium and iron, and is a good source of Vitamins A, C and K.
As for growing Swiss chard, it likes a sunny spot and well-drained soil. Before sowing, prepare a ‘seed bed’. Fork over the ground and break up hefty clods, while removing large stones and weeds. Rake backwards and forwards until the top 2-3in has the texture of coarse breadcrumbs.
Make a shallow, 1in-deep channel with the corner of a rake using a builder’s string line as a guide and sow seeds thinly along the base – allow a gap of about 14in between subsequent rows.
Cover, label and water the ground gently with a can fitted with a sprinkler head to avoid disturbing the seeds.
Once seeds germinate, the resulting seedlings will need thinning out so they are not overcrowded and plants have plenty of room to grow to full size. Carefully pull a few up when they are about ½in tall, leaving a 12in gap between those remaining. It might seem a little bit wasteful to pull up lots of seedlings but there’s no need to throw them away. The ‘thinnings’ are completely edible, with a flavour that’s much more concentrated than that of mature leaves. Toss them into salads, sprinkle on soups or add to sandwiches.
Another option is to raise plants in containers. Scatter about ten seeds on the surface of a 3in-wide pot filled with seed compost and cover with a 1in layer of vermiculite. Set each seedling in a 3in pot when they’re large enough to handle, then replant in a slightly bigger pot once roots appear through the drainage holes.
A big benefit of growing chard in pots is that you can use well-rooted specimens to provide a splash of colour to beds over winter. There’s no reason why you can’t use individual plants to fill small gaps, but for maximum impact, set plants in groups of three or more, spacing them about 12in apart. As for looking after Swiss chard, water plants regularly and feed every 14 days with a liquid fertiliser high in nitrogen. Leaves will be ready for harvesting about 12 weeks after sowing. Use a sharp knife to cut individual leaves from the outside of plants, ensuring they produce plenty of fresh growth.