A Darla Discovery Takes to the Garden

Before this year we never enjoyed success growing rainbow chard, certainly not enough to eat. In 2016 a single seed produced results and SO liked the pretty foliage so much I was discouraged from harvesting any leaves. By fall when I went to cut it down my hands would not have fit around the base of that plant. Cool, but not practical.

Last year not a single chard seed sown among my perennials even sprouted. And we had decided we wanted to try adding those greens to our diet. So this year we took a different approach, buying three garden center grown plants and putting them in our root and vegetable EarthBox.

Baby Plants, Now Ten Times the Size

Success! Unfortunately, I am almost tired of eating chard. At least we keep finding new recipes thanks to the Internet. Charring the leaves with a little shallot and olive oil, then sprinkling the chopped bits with more oil, salt, pepper, and golden raisins proved quite tasty yesterday.

I may attempt to make chard ‘crisps’ with nothing but a tiny bit of oil and salt sprinkled over before baking. SO likes to nibble on sheets of nori leftover from rolling homemade futomaki, so why not?

Now, for my discovery, harvesting advice I found online proved very useful. Sure, you can cut off a few leaves here and there. You can also chop the plant to the ground.

We decided to try that with one plant after finding the big leaves less tasty, the stems downright woody. Below you can see the tender new growth.

Look at the Size of that Cut Stalk Compared to the Shoots at Lowest Left

Would you sample if someone set a plate of charred greens or crisped seaweed (nori) in front of you?

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