Chard and Leaf Beet

Seeds are medium-sized and clustered, so growth is reasonably fast and prolific.

Propagation works best under cover because, as with beetroot, there are many pests that enjoy the tiny seedlings. These include slugs, woodlice, and sparrows.

• Seeds germinate in five to seven days.

Sowing time

A key understanding is that chard flowers in early spring. Therefore, if you sow in late winter to early spring, there is a risk of your early growth converting to flower stems before the plants are very old.

• Early spring sowings are likely to produce a fair few bolting stems, compared to sowing in mid-spring which results in only a few. With multisown clumps, it’s simple to twist out the bolting plants and leave the rest to grow more.
• The presence of even a few bolters makes a planting look far worse than it really is – there will still be many good plants producing.
• The most productive sowing time is mid-spring, from which harvests can flow all year and even through winter a little.

It can also be worth sowing in early summer to give autumn harvests a boost. Another nice result is that the younger plants will better survive winter, compared to the older plants of your first sowing.

Sowing method

Chard seeds are mostly in clusters, just like beetroot. Each seed grows perhaps three seedlings of variable vigour – multisow according to how many plants you want. Because of uncertain germination rates (never 100%), I treat each seed as though it will grow one plant.

• Sow three seeds if you want three plants, and then remove the weakest seedlings.
• For chard to cook with, aim for two plants per clump. This should give plenty of medium-sized leaves, rather than fewer large leaves from one plant per module.
• For chard to grow salad leaves, four seedlings in a clump works well, so that none are too big.
• When thinning seedlings, and if they are rainbow chard, you can pull out the stem colours that you like the least. Do this as soon as the cotyledons are developed. The colour of each plant shows early in life as the colour of its tiny stems.

Pot on?

There is rarely any need to pot on. It’s easier to time your sowings at less than a month before the ground will be ready, and just three weeks in summer. Sometimes we even transplant two-week-old seedlings, when conditions are favourable.

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Transplant size

Two true leaves is a minimum, and plants can be larger than that, up to, say, 8 cm/3 in high.

Transplant time and method

For growing outdoors, the transplant time is late spring to midsummer, possibly late summer in warm climates. For growing chard under cover in winter, sow and transplant in early autumn.

Holes that you make with a wooden dibber need to be quite deep because chard transplants often have long stems, which become stable when below ground level.

Spacing

For salad chard, plants can be as little as 22 cm/9 in apart.

For cooking chard, spacing can still be quite close, from 30–35 cm/12–14in. Slightly wider spacings are good for long-term growth so that each clump has room to continue exploring for food and moisture.

Interplant

Chard is quick to harvest when plants are close together in a block. Occasionally you may have the chance to pop plants in spare space, as we did with a second-year asparagus planting that was not yet rooting into the whole bed. Don’t overcrowd the asparagus though.

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How often

As with all leaf vegetables, chard produces the most when it is well watered and when soil is at optimum moisture. The no dig method helps a lot because both drainage and aeration are automatically good, making it more difficult to over-water in particular.

• In dry conditions, it should be fine to water twice a week.
• If you don’t water, plants will most likely survive but give smaller harvests.

How much

It’s worth giving a serious amount of water each time you apply some. Then it can descend to the deeper roots, and last for longer with less evaporation.

A dry surface does not mean you need to water, because many roots go down deep to find moisture.

Extra mulch to retain moisture?

This is definitely a good idea in dry climates. Not only will it increase leaf growth, but it should enable plants to live longer from being less stressed.

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How to judge readiness

You can pick leaves a soon as you see any of the size that you like. However, do balance this with three considerations:

• Before a first pick, wait until leaves are touching each other, between neighbouring plants. This allows a decent root system to have established. Regrowth will then be stronger.
• The first pick from small, young plants needs doing carefully, in order not to damage the root system which is still developing.
• In the dark and cool of winter, all leaves are small. Don’t wait for them to grow more – they won’t! Just pick small.

How to pick

With a gentle twist, leaf stalks generally detach from the main stem at soil level. This gives more harvest and leaves very little stalk on the plant, which makes the next picking easier. It also reduces slug habitat, in the crevice between the centre of a plant and a decaying residue of any stalk.

• For each leaf you want to pick, place your thumb at the base of its stalk, near to soil level and with fingers below the stalk. Push downwards and at the same time rotate slightly, to enable a clean break.
• You can use a knife to cut stalks as low as possible, but this will leave a decaying residue.
• For salad chard, you can perhaps use your thumbnail to ‘cut’ each stalk, close to the main stem.

Cutting whole plants

This is an option, being sure to cut above the level of central young leaves. The cut is quick, but regrowth will be much slower than when you pick leaf by leaf.

When to pick and how often

You could harvest chard three times a week in the summer, from a few plants. Say six to eight clumps for a family. Chard’s speed of growth during the five months from late spring to early autumn is remarkable, as long as there is soil moisture.

If plants produce more leaves than you need, some will start to decay, grow tough or develop spots as they age. It’s worth picking these leaves to put on the compost heap, allowing new and more tender growth.

Storing

Of leaf vegetables, chard is one that stores the best, thanks to high dry matter in each leaf and stalk. They go limp if not in a polythene bag, and you can also keep them fresh by placing the bottoms of stalks in some water.

In a polythene bag in cool temperatures, chard can store in nice condition for up to ten days.

Saving seed

As for beetroot, this is not worthwhile in a small garden, since it requires space for six to eight plants which grow very large.

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Which pests are likely

• Slugs eat holes in leaves.
• Birds peck leaf edges between the veins, leaving a jagged pattern.
• Deer eat the leafy top of any stalk, and prefer red to green.
• Leaf miner hoovers up inside leaves, between the two outer layers, causing limpness and brown patches which can be large.

Protections needed

Leaf miner is the only problem insect. However, when soil is fertile, no dig and moist, it should not be significant enough to worry about.

One method of protection is bird netting. I recommend UV treated, polypropylene net with 12 mm/0.5 in squares. You should be able to reuse it for at least ten years and probably more. Best width of netting is twice the width of your beds, so there is enough width for the plants’ height on both sides.

• Wind and cold may slow growth, especially of seedlings in spring. Lay fleece directly on top of new plantings, or use mesh on hoops when they are larger.

Other likely difficulties

Some plants suffer mould on their baby leaves, like a downy mildew. It affects only a few plants and, in a bed with close spacing, there are sufficient healthy plants for harvests to continue.

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