Swiss Chard
Swiss Chard
This past fall I decided to try planting a new vegetable: Swiss chard. I had been reading up on gardening from Carla Emery’s Encyclopedia of Country Living book, which is my go-to book on anything related to homesteading. Anyway, I was intrigued by Swiss chard because it seemed very versatile.
You can eat the greens in many different ways. You can steam them until they wilt, add to stir-fry, add to soups, or eat the tender leaves raw in salads. You can eat the stalks, which are similar to celery, but much easier to grow. Chickens love them, too. The latter statement sold me on Swiss chard because if my family and I did not like them, they could at least be fed to our flock of chickens.
We planted two different varieties. One had red stalks, which resemble rhubarb. It is called Ruby chard. The other was Fordhook Giant and it had white stalks. They grew all fall and through the winter without any protection from the elements. But remember, we live in southeast Texas where the climate is mild. We had one snow and numerous freezes, but not one lasted long or was very hard.
You harvest it just like leaf lettuce, picking only what you need for the day and leaving the plant intact. You just remove the leaves. We really enjoyed our Swiss chard so much so that we planted some in our early spring garden. Our favorite way to eat it was in salad to which they added a pretty dark green and red color. And, we loved them in stir-fry. I would just chop/shred them like cabbage and add them in abundance to the wok. Absolutely delicious!
I am so glad that we decided to experiment with a new vegetable in our garden. Seeds do not cost very much so it was not much of a risk. Swiss chard not only was a great and easy to grow, but it yielded countless dishes at our dinner table. Nothing went to waste because whatever we could not eat our chickens did. I would recommend Swiss chard as an addition to anyone’s garden and dinner menu. If you know of any other way to eat this vegetable, please let me know. We are not afraid of trying new things.
I am so glad that I saw this. We will be adding Swiss Chard to our garden this fall and have often wondered what we will do with it. I wonder if the goats might like it as well. We will see. Good information.
[...] Swiss chard. If you aren’t familiar with this vegetable, then you can read all about it here. Anyway, we really wanted the chard to make big leaves with large stalks so that we could use the [...]
i too added swiss chard to my garden this year. I’m so glad! it’s beautiful & we all love it. My favorite recipe for it is to lightly coat w/evoo, roll a slice of tomato & mozzarella cheese inside & grill on an open flame for sunday cookouts! YUM-O as RR says.
I will definitely have to try Swiss chard grilled. It sounds YUM-O!!