Swiss chard
Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla
also called swiss chard, silverbeet
Rainbow-stemmed leaf — a cut-and-come-again beside beans.
- Type
- Vegetable · Grown as an annual
- Botanical family
- Chenopod (beet & chard family)
- Foliage color
- Green
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Rich, moisture-retentive
- Feeding
- Leafy greens & lawns
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Cool-season crop
- Yes — takes a second fall window
- Season
- Cool Season
- Harvest type
- Single Harvest
- Start from
- seed
- Germination temp
- 50–77°F
- Min soil temp
- 43 °F
- Photoperiod
- long day
- Sow indoors
- 21 days before the last spring frost
- Sow direct
- 7 days before the last spring frost
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 50 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 14 days after the first fall frost
- 0 d Sow seeds
- 10 d Germination
- 60 d Harvest
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 9.8 in
- Between rows
- 15.7 in
- Square-foot density
- 4 per square
- Sow depth
- 0.8 in
- Root system
- Fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–18 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
A dense mass of roots through the topsoil with a few running deeper after water. Work the bed to a spade’s depth before planting and it will find everything it needs without much help.
The habit is Swiss chard’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Confirmed safe
We say a plant is safe only where a named poison-control reference names that exact species and records it as non-toxic to both cats and dogs. Most plants are on nobody’s list, and their absence here is not a judgement about them. This is a record of what those references say, not veterinary advice, and it cannot account for your own animal, the quantity eaten, or a plant treated with anything.
The ASPCA files chard within its Beets row: Swiss Chard is one of that entry’s printed common names, and our Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla sits inside its Beta vulgaris.
- When
- First baby leaves come 30–40 days from sowing, full-sized leaves from 50–60 days. Harvest runs from early summer until hard frost; plants often overwinter under fleece in mild areas and give a bonus spring flush before bolting.
- What to look for
- Outer leaves 15–25 cm long for tender salads, up to 30–40 cm for cooking, glossy and fully colored with crisp, firm midribs. Avoid leaves that have gone dull, leathery, or ragged from age.
- How to harvest
- Cut or snap outer leaves individually at the base, 2–3 cm above the crown, with a sharp knife, working from the outside in. Never cut into or below the crown — the central growing point produces all subsequent leaves.
- How often
- Pick little and often, every 5–10 days, always leaving 4–5 central leaves so the plant keeps photosynthesizing. Regular harvesting keeps plants productive for months; a single plant can crop from early summer into winter.
- Storing the crop
- Chard wilts fast — refrigerate unwashed in a perforated bag with a damp paper towel for 3–5 days. Separate stems and leaves for cooking (stems take longer); blanch and freeze leaves for winter use, and stems can be pickled.
- Leaf miners Larvae that tunnel pale wandering trails or blotches inside the leaf itself. Pick off and destroy mined leaves; damage is usually cosmetic.
- Slugs & snails Ragged holes and silvery trails on seedlings and soft young growth, worst in damp weather. Use beer traps, wool pellets, or torchlight hand-picking; keep beds clear of daytime hiding places.
- Birds Pigeons strip brassica leaves; other birds take fruit, buds, and seedlings. Netting fixed taut over hoops is the only reliable protection.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Slugs & snails
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Slugs & snails
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Slugs & snails
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Slugs & snails
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Leaf miners
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
Good neighbors
Chard and beetroot are the same species, bred for their leaves instead of their roots.
Green-leaved vegetables, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com