This guide provides a comprehensive overview of how to successfully grow Swiss chard, emphasizing its nutritional value, prolific yield, and ease of cultivation for home gardeners.
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well hello everyone and welcome to
another very exciting episode here on
the my gardener Channel I'm so excited
for this complete growing guide because
of the fact it's one that I've never
done before and I know a lot of you have
been asking about this and it's Swiss
chard Swiss chard is one of my favorite
greens if not my favorite it's just very
colorful super nutrient dense and it
grows so prolifically that if you're a
family of three you can plant four or
five plants and you're still going to
have more than you know what to do with
your to be thrown in the freezer you're
going to give it to your neighbors and
shoving it on them and it's a lot like
tomatoes you don't need that many to
feed your family obviously we go away
more than that because we give some away
to friends family food the soup kitchen
and we we so many so many greens during
the summer time because it's just it's
so expensive in the store to buy and
that's why I love growing the stuff like
that is because we could buy broccoli we
can buy corn so we don't grow as much of
that but the greens and those are the
those are the the ones we focus on a lot
in the garden here so that's why we grow
it so let's get right into this growing
guide and let's talk about kind of the
temperature that you want to aim for
when drawing Swiss chard so the ideal
temperature that I find for Swiss chard
is just about as soon as you can work
the soil Swiss chard or something that
can tolerate very low temperatures and
you want to wait till it's about a week
before your last frost they can tolerate
31 32 degrees but I prefer not to put
them through that because they are a
more temperamental green they're
something that's that's seen as very
cold tolerant but something that if it
does get frost it's going to let you
know because the leaves are going to
kind of turn a little brown and and
withered now let's talk about the pH of
the soil the pH for Swiss chard is just
about the same as all the other leafy
greens about pH of neutral so I
basically say pH of compost because the
compost is going to have a very good pH
buffer of 7 and that's neutral so you're
not going to have something that's too
acidic you're not going to have
something that's too alkaline
so instead of getting caught up with all
these different numbers of like a 5.5 a
6.5 an 8.5 you know that just confuses
people so I keep it really simple and
just say a PA
of compost because if you're using
compost it's going to be right around
the perfect pH so all of our garden soil
is 100% compost and so that also answers
the type of soil that I like to use for
growing in it's a very rich organic soil
that's full of compost
once all compost it's pure compost which
is full of leaf mold and grass clippings
and it's just a very nice rich matter
that that has worms in it as well and
different fungi and stuff that helps the
plant grow better so I don't get too
scientific when it comes to the right
type of soil I just typically look at
what nature does and say if I can get
something even close to that my plants
are going to do great now one thing that
I can say about soil is you can't in
close we check out the spacing and
planting portion of this growing diet
really the easiest part of the growing
guide by the way the soil also has some
sanded it and what I like to do is I
like to mix in the compost and sand at a
one-to-one ratio because I find that
often times adding sand to the to the
bed it also helps increase the drainage
and that's something that I've always
made a practice of it doesn't
necessarily add any nutrients it doesn't
really help out the the soil in any way
as far as the nutrients go but when it
comes to drainage and helping the roots
have something nice and fluffy to
penetrate and go down deep it really
helps with that so your soil is going to
clump a lot less with sand and I find
that even when I'm using compost
sometimes the grass clumps that are from
the compost can kind of stick together
and map together and you'll find that
that can kind of be hard sometimes for
the roots to go through so by adding
sand it helps are going to break up that
matting and keep everything really nice
and free-flowing which you'll see in a
second so come on close and let's check
this out alright so this is kind of what
I was talking about with the whole
matting thing this is actually finished
compost believe it or not and it's it
was dry in one of our other beds but I
wanted to show you kind of what I mean
by the fact that it really mats together
and it produces these little kind of I
don't know it kind of looks like little
sheets little sheets of compost and and
they kind of just peel apart but it's
very difficult for the roots to get
through so what we do is we add that sand
sand
and now instead of the clumps look at
this I mean it's just unreal how how
loose and crumbly it is so you go from
this stuff which is very great rich in
organic matter but it clumps together to
adding some sand and now it's just Wow I
mean that's all you can really say is Wow
Wow
so now let's get into planting what do
you want to do is you want to space your
plants out about every 8 to 10 inches
same as a lot of your other leafy greens
because the fact you're going to be
harvesting a lot of things people say oh
spaced out about a foot and I just say
to them why you know why do you want to
space your plants out a foot are you not
harvesting from them you know what are
you gaining by that so ideally 8 to 10
inches is going to be great because you
could pack it in there and what that's
going to do is going to give you a
couple extra plants per square foot that
you wouldn't normally get by following
their their spacing methods and also
what you're going to do is you're going
to be able to obviously produce more
food so I like to go high-intensity and
I produce way more food in my square
footage than most people and they say
you know man out of this 30 square foot
bed you're producing the amount of food
that I get out of a hundred square foot
bed and I say well you know what's your
spacing like and then once you look at
their spacing it's very evident why
they're not getting as much as I am so
that's just my little secret to getting
more food for less space which is nice
too because I think as a society that's
where we're going to be going it you
know we need to we need to look at ways
to produce more food organically than
how we normally do and I see absolutely
nothing wrong with this spacing
whatsoever and this is how I've always
spaced mine and they've done great so
there you go hopefully you all enjoyed
hopefully you all learned something new
I highly suggest growing Swiss chard
like I said it is such a nutrient-dense
vegetable high in vitamin K E C a fiber
protein it's just unreal it's got lots
of iron as well so it's an all-around
amazing green worth growing and it's
something that I think a lot of grocery
stores even have really neglected to
carry I've hardly ever seen Swiss chard
in our local
or Surrey store and it's a shame too
because it's probably one of the most
delicious greens out there you know
kales really delicious is very versatile
but it's a little hard sometimes so in a
nice salad it's kind of difficult to
incorporate for some people's tastes but
you you throw it Swiss chard and they
treat it just like any other lettuce
they don't even realize it's in there so
it's a very good transitional vegetable
to get people interested in gardening
without turning them off too much
because some some things in the garden
are a little bit of an acquired taste I
find but I love it but as far as me
trying to get all the people eating
vegetables is what I'm trying to say so
hopefully you all enjoyed hopefully you
learn something new and hopefully you're
having fun in the garden whatever you're
growing as long as you're growing
something that's all that matters so I
will talk to you later this is Luke from
the mi Gardner channel and I'll see you
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