Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is a leafy green grown for its edible leaves and stalks. It is a beet relative grown for the top rather than the root, and the stalks come in white, yellow, pink and red; the mixed 'Bright Lights' type is as ornamental as anything in the flower border. It tolerates both heat and light frost better than spinach, which gives it the longest harvest window of any garden green.

Sow directly a few weeks before last frost, a half inch deep, and again in midsummer for fall; or start indoors for an earlier crop. Each seed is a cluster that gives several seedlings, so thin to 6 to 12 inches. It wants rich, moist soil in sun or part shade and steady water for tender leaves. Harvest the outer leaves and the centre keeps producing for months; a plant cut back hard in late summer regrows for fall.

It is a biennial and bolts less readily than spinach, flowering only in its second year or under drought stress. Leaf miners tunnel the leaves in early summer and a row cover at sowing stops them. It overwinters under mulch in zone 6 and milder for an early spring picking. Deer and rabbits graze it, so keep it fenced.