You can eat the leaves when young, raw, in salads, or cook the stems and leaves as they mature. Larger stems and leaves are very versatile, and go particularly well in pasta dishes, pizza, omelettes and curries. Can I grow chard in containers? You can place netting over your containers in the spring and early summer when the pests emerge and start to feed, or you can keep your plants indoors. If you’re growing in the fall and winter, you don’t need to worry about this particular problem.

Nothing will go to waste, as everything is edible on the Chard Peppermint. Its leaves can be used just like spinach or cabbage and mid-ribs can be cooked as separate veg or shredded and added to soups and casseroles. Harvest your chard from July through to October and add this delicious variety to your favourite autumnal recipes. Growing Information Fire Fresh is a fast-growing chard with ruby stems and veins. The leaves are ready to harvest in 23 to 35 days from transplanting, and the plants have a good degree of disease resistance. Any type of loam will do so long as you till it well and deeply, and work in ample organic compost or well-rotted manure.Then, place a humidity dome or clear plastic over the top of the container, covering the seeds, like a clear lid. Your goal is to create a miniature greenhouse effect to help keep the moisture levels steady until germination. Chard is one of those vegetables that is among the essentials of increasingly-popular Mediterranean Cuisine, and that makes sense because this leafy green is a native of Sicily. Suttons strives to ensure that all its plants are delivered to you in the perfect condition for planting. While the majority of our nursery plants cope well with slight delays in intransit, sadly, the time it takes to deliver to certain locations in the UK means that we can't guarantee this for some of our smaller plug products and tender bedding and vegetable lines, which do not respond well to the extra journey time. So regretfully while we offer the majority of our live plant offering nationwide, we are unable to ship plugs, begging plants and tender vegetable plants to the following areas: HS, IV41-IV49, IV51, IV55-56, KW15-KW17, PA34, PA41-48, PA60-PA78, PA80, PH40-PH44, TR21-TR24, ZE1-ZE3.

Perpetual Spinach’ is identified by its very name as a cultivar that you can be assured of harvesting on a continuing basis. It is more spinach-like than most Chards and makes a fine spinach substitute. This variety keeps particularly well, and can be refrigerated longer than most others, and is the best one to store frozen. Begin harvesting Swiss chard when the leaves are about six inches tall. The younger leaves are great in a salad or eaten like beet greens or spinach. Cut the young plants an inch above the ground with sharp scissors or garden shears and they’ll continue to grow over and over. Alternatively, cut stalks from the outside of the plant and leave behind the heart of the plant, which will continue to grow as well. They are nocturnal creatures so if you go out in the morning and see tears and holes in your Chard, suspect slugs. Each year you’ll inevitably run out of garden space and have a certain amount of seeds left over after planting. Don’t throw them out just yet! Depending on the type of seed and its quality, you may be able to store them and use them next year or the year after. In fact, some seeds, if properly stored, can be viable even after ten years. Some varieties of tomato seeds have even been known to germinate after as long as 16 years! Tips for Storing Seeds Swiss chard seed can be sown directly into the soil from spring until summer or in an unheated greenhouse from a little earlier.

9cm Potted Plugs

This useful veg is easy to grow and is prolific enough to provide a continuous supply of tasty greens for months on end. It is not only easy to grow, you can keep snipping off a few leaves every so often, thereby continuing to harvest this tasty vegetable from one and the same plant for even two years. FAQ’s Is Swiss Chard Cold Hardy? Tip: You do not have to worry about slugs eating your chard. They dislike this vegetable and tend to avoid it. Find more tips on growing chard here.

You want about three to four half-inch holes per every square foot of surface area on the base of your pot. Or one drainage hole for every one to two gallons of potting soil. joegardener Online Gardening Academy Growing Epic Tomatoes : Tomato expert Craig LeHoullier joins me in leading this course on how to grow healthier, productive tomato plants and how to overcome tomato-growing challenges. If you need a little help in the water-retention department, some straw mulch can help to maintain more moisture in the soil.

Young Chard leaves are genuinely tasty eaten fresh and raw and they make succulent additions to salads. With a small vegetable garden, I prefer to use the space to grow as many crops as possible in succession. I, therefore, tend to rely on purchasing seeds unless they can be harvested in the first year (such as tomatoes).” You should also keep mobility in mind. If you want to take your plants indoors in advance of the winter, during hot summer conditions, or move your pots to follow the sun, you’ll need to be sure you can lift them. Red Magic is a hybrid with cranberry red stems and veins. It is a hybrid that grows up to 18 inches tall. It reaches maturity in about 60 days. As the new plants mature, continue to keep the soil moist and a layer of mulch can be added around the plants to help conserve moisture and suppress weeds.