Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-254
Swiss Chard
Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris
Swiss chard is the one leafy green here that survives a genuinely hot summer bed rather than bolting through it - it does not run to seed under long hot days the way beet or spinach does, so with afternoon shade and steady water it lives through a hundred-degree July, though growth stalls and the real yield comes in spring and fall. It gives three harvests off one planting: the leaf blade cooks like spinach, the steamed petiole is a gourmet vegetable in its own right, and the second-year flowering stem works as a broccoli substitute. Cut-and-come-again harvesting from the outer leaves keeps a single plant producing for months, which makes it a bed plant rather than a field crop. Its leaves also make solid cattle and sheep forage wilted or ensiled, but never raw to pigs, since the oxalic acid in beet-family greens is dangerous to swine.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 2–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Moderate
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Biennial
- Mature height
- 12–24 in
- Mature spread
- 9–18 in
- Plant spacing
- 8–12 in
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
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Alsike Clover
Trifolium hybridum
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Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
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Anise Hyssop
Agastache foeniculum
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Apple Mint
Mentha suaveolens
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