Thursday, June 28, 2018

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?

-

12 comments:

  1. I really like Nori, actually. I've baked kale leaves before with various spices and olive oil. Hard not to char them though, fine line. That was after getting some really tasty dried seasoned kale at the Grocery Outlet in a bag.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not seaweed. And greens depends on the greens! There are so many different ones, and I don't like many of them!
    I like chard in enchiladas. Use it in place of meat. With cheese and sour cream in the tortilla. Kale is just for the Guinea pigs!
    Your June must be cool. My chard bolted a while back. It's a fall or early spring crop here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting! The weather has been hot. I think the white sun reflective lining of the mulch cover helps. Happy Gardening!

      Delete
  3. Isn't the internet great for new ideas? Glad it's growing for you now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes to most greens, but no on the seaweed, I find it too salty. I love swiss chard though, so tasty with butter and parmesan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good for you on chard! I think you mentioned boiling the greens, which we have not tried. Thanks for weighing in!

      Delete
  5. Morning...I feel like that question was directed at me, that you have talked to folks from my past and they tell you that Pam will not try anything new! HAHA. That was years, and years ago. I had a friend I worked with that would bring things to work and would not tell me what was in it till I tried it!! But in 2003 I took my first cruise and decided that it was all an adventure so I tried snails! I make it a point to try different stuff now so with this long reply the answer would be yes. Not saying I would like but I would try. Keeping in mind that I am not fond of green leafy stuff. I don't care for lettuce! I eat it in a salad, leaving several pieces. I rather not have it on an sandwich and I sure am not going to eat a wedge of it. All I can say, other than what I have rattled on about is...ENJOY!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Can you freeze chard? I think nori is just okay, but maybe I'd like a chard version. Have a lovely weekend :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Refrigerating raw chard turned disastrous. It looked like bat wings. ~grin~ But freezing it once cooked might be possible. Thank you for the kind word!

      Delete

Hope you enjoyed stopping by and please drop a line. I love comments.

Any and all will be published upon approval. Thanks!