HelpfulGardener.com

I have been picking a bucketful of chard each week for 7 weeks now and it just continues to send out leaves. What an amazing plant.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/chard_Aug10.jpg[/img]

this may sound dumb, but I never do that often but what does chard taste like? I've thought if growing it but I didn't ...

nathan125 wrote:this may sound dumb, but I never do that often but what does chard taste like? I've thought if growing it but I didn't ...

It has a spinach like texture and can be used as a spinach substitute but it does have a milder flavor in my opinion. I love growing it in the fall and into the spring. I've tried to grow it in the summer here in New Orleans but it just gets eaten up or beat down by our heat.

Yes, I have a bunch of posts scattered around here about amazing chard. When people ask about what is easy to grow, I always recommend chard. My favorite thing in my garden, just grows and grows and grows from before last frost to after first frost.

Nothing bothers it, even the resident ground hog. I can't grow cabbage, because the ground hog will tear through anything to get to it, but for some reason she never touches my chard....

I have a chard plant that is 3 years old. just keeps on giving.

+1 on the Giant Fordhook. I have some of that and also some Rainbow Chard. The Giant Fordhook is superior.

Yesterday I harvested a big bunch of veggies for the Farmer's Market. Today I turned the water on the garden, and I get a day off.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/garden_water.jpg[/img]

I may have shown you this pic before. It shows my sprinkler system at work.

I try to pull leaves & stems when they are still young but still have size to them. The stems get bitter if you let it get too large.

I've given up on harvesting it because I can't hardly give it away here... I put a big bunch in each CSA customer's basket each week just because I hate to see it go to waste.

I like to eat the stems too.

I can usually sell a few packages of chard at the Market. I think a lot of people have never tried it and they are reluctant to try something new. Of course there are those who have tried it and don't like it. My wife is on that list.

There are a couple of charities that will take anything I don't sell.

Keep putting chard in those CSA baskets. Maybe people will come to know and appreciate chard. Good grief it was expensive at the local super market. $2.39 a pound. I was asking $1 for a bag that weighed a pound.

We like it like the Italians in our pasta sauce. Just pick it fairly young, take out the stalk, break it up a little and wilt with olive oil and garlic or garlic scapes, before adding the rest. Another way we like it is to take the stalks out and then pulse in the blender. Make a garlic white sauce like creamed spinnach. Can eat it that way, thin for soup or use over whole wheat tortilla shells stuffed with tuna and a little of the sauce, heat with a little cheese, heaven on earth as it were.
We also like it wilted in olive oil with garlic and grated rainbow carrots as a vegetable. Small it isn't a half bad salad entrant. We grow all of them and for most things if it is picked small enough it doesn't matter. The neighbor swears by rhubarb chard. I think I like bright light or neon lights because it is so pretty.
Did I mention that it is very popular in Mexican cuisiane as well?

Glad to hear your chard is going good. It is very hardy. If you look for those scattered post of Rainbow's I will probably be right by her side and more than likely touting the greatness that is chard. It just does when everything else is not.

I like it as a filler for salad, the big leaves make a small fresh salad into a mighty fresh salad.

Here is the chard I broadcasted in my flower garden last year. I could have made shirt out of this stuff. It really wasn't for eating more for well flower garden type stuff. LOL

[img]https://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj185/gixxerific/Gardening/DSC03963.jpg[/img]