Swiss chard

Before the first frost, cut Swiss chard back to just above the ground, taking care of the heart. Then cover the rootstock thickly with leaves, straw or brushwood and stretch a garden fleece over it. In a container, additionally wrap the pot in hessian or fleece and place it sheltered against a house wall. Red-stemmed varieties are more sensitive than white-stemmed ones and need particularly careful covering.

You propagate Swiss chard exclusively from seed. There are no vegetative methods for this herbaceous plant. For an early harvest, start the plants under cover from mid-February on a windowsill or in a greenhouse: sow seeds singly or in pairs 2 to 3 cm deep in pots; at 15 to 20 °C they germinate in 10 to 14 days. Note: chard seeds are “clusters” with several seedlings, so you need to thin once they have come up. From mid-April, plant the young plants out in the bed, spaced about 30 × 20 cm. Alternatively, sow directly outdoors: from mid-April (at first under fleece protection) until August, staggered every 3 to 4 weeks for a continuous harvest.

Saving your own seed: Swiss chard is biennial and only flowers in its second year after a cold stimulus in winter. To get this, let a few strong plants overwinter. In autumn, cut the stalks back to about 5 cm and cover the root with mulch or brushwood. In spring they shoot again and bolt. From mid-June, stop harvesting so that flowers and seeds can form. From September the seeds are dry and easy to strip off the dried-up stalks; put them in a cloth bag to dry further.

Important for seed that stays true to type: chard is a wind-pollinated cross-pollinator and crosses with all other Beta vulgaris plants (beetroot, sugar beet and fodder beet). So let only one variety flower in the neighbourhood at a time, keep a large distance from other Beta plants, or protect the flowering plants with fleece.