Allotments 4 All

I need some help with chard...  ???

I've sown quite a lot in the raised beds, but wanted to try something a bit different.

So I bought some red rhubarb chard! The thing that suprised me is on the instructions it says "sow Feb - May and plant out in their final position the following winter. Do not harvest until second year after harvesting."

Is this right? I thought you could plant chard and eat it as soon as it's big enough to put in a salad or leave it to cut after a couple of months. Is this part chard part rhubarb?

Is rhubarb chard different to the normal swiss stuff?

Don't worry, it is just another red ribbed variety of Swiss Chard, use it young or mature. There are some varieties that don't do so well in the summer heat but basically they are much the same growth wise.

XX Jeannine

That sounds weird. It almost sounds like someone thought the seed was rhubarb seed. (It isn't is it?). I took over my allotment in mid April this year and have made two successional sowings of ruby chard and have cut both crops. I grow on 4 ft wide beds too and one sowing of 3 x 4ft rows of chard gave me 3lb 4 oz of chard this week for leaf beet spinach and the separate stalks for a stir fry, a noodle broth and diced finely in meatballs.

You would be able to tell the differnce easily if they had given you rhubarb seed instead of rhubard chard. I think they have given you the wrong directions but I would keep a close eye on the growth and type of the leaf.

XX Jeannine

If it is rhubarb I'm sure everyone on here will come to you aid with lots of recipes- you are going to get an awful lot! ;)

Rhubarb chard is the same as the green stuff. I find it to be less productive... which is why I went back to green ones.  :-\ But it is nice in salad if youtake the baby leaves!

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure they put the wrong directions on the packet.

Just don't eat the leaves if it is actually rhubarb! Oxalic acid in them, isn't that correct? Bad.
The aroma of the stalk should give a clue to what you were sold.

I'm growing a small bit of green chard in a raised bed 2 foot square in part shade. It is giving the two of us all we want.