Swiss Chard: Underrated Garden Star

/Home/Garden Types/Fruit and Vegetable Gardening/Vegetable Gardening/Garden Swiss Chard

Texas Gardener
P.O. Box 9005
10566 North River Crossing
Waco, Texas 76714

Toll-Free: 800-727-9020
Phone: (254) 848-9393

The magazine for Texas gardeners, by Texas gardeners.

By Patty Glenn Leander
Contributing Writer

Cold-hardy greens such as collards, turnips and kale are excellent crops for Texas gardens, but as temperatures begin to warm up in spring, these greens quickly begin to decline. Swiss chard, underutilized and underappreciated in far too many gardens and kitchens, is a delicious leafy green that is able to tolerate heat, withstand cold, and look attractive while doing it. Its brightly colored stems and thick, crinkled leaves contribute beauty to the landscape and nutrition to the plate.

ORIGINS OF SWISS CHARD
It is reasonable to assume that a vegetable called Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris var. cicla) would have origins in Switzerland, but in fact it is closely related to the garden beet which is native to the coastal regions of the Mediterranean. According to heirloom vegetable expert William Woys Weaver, chard has been cultivated “since classical antiquity,” and its nomenclature has gone through many incarnations.

The stems of chard closely resemble those of cardoon, and the French word cardons was used to denote both vegetables, though botanically they are not related. To further confuse the matter, the leafy vegetable chard with the colorful stems was also known in France as Chilean beet. In Italy it was referred to as white beet, to British gardeners it was silver beet or sea kale beet and early American settlers knew it as beet chard. The stems come in an array of dazzling colors — orange, magenta, crimson, yellow and pink — which are often sold under the common descriptor of “rainbow chard.” Some older horticultural records refer to the green-leaved chard with broad white stems as Swiss chard, but today chard and Swiss chard are used interchangeably. Chard was prized by the Greeks and Romans for its medicinal properties, and modern science affirms this belief. It is a valuable and often overlooked source of many nutrients, including vitamins A, C and K, calcium, magnesium, potassium and fiber.

Copyright ©1999-2012 Texas Gardener.