Harvesting this month - March

Swiss Chard



Swiss chard is something most people think of as a summer vegetable - but if you make a late sowing, in around late July or August, you can overwinter it and the result is a really tasty filler for the hungry gap.

The white-stemmed chard might not be quite as pretty as ruby chard (ruby red stems and purple leaves) or the extraordinary multicoloured 'Bright Lights' (yellow, purple, green, white, pink and orange stems all on the same plant) - but I think it has a charm of its own, and what's more it's said to have by far the best flavour. Now, I can't testify to that first-hand, never having eaten either ruby or multicoloured chard; but I do know that this stuff has given us some really delicious eating.

It's a very forgiving plant and will just keep on growing and growing whatever the weather (and you) throw at it. It'll take a degree of neglect, and it's a cut-and-come-again crop, which means you can pick off the outer leaves several times in one season so long as you don't take the central crown. If there ever was an easy-to-grow vegetable, this is it.

You cook chard in two stages: the stems, and then the leaves. The stems take about 10 minutes to steam, and the leaves between 3 and 5; so if you put the stems in first, and add the leaves a couple of minutes before the end, you can have a combined dish. Or just eat them separately: the leaves behave and taste just like spinach, while the stems can be eaten as a celery substitute, or stir-fried, or just sauteéd in a little butter and served up as a side dish.

Getting into a routine

I thought it might be useful to write down the routine I've established this year - everything changes so much over winter and spring that I forget from one year to the next what I was doing this time last year.

So... I'm trying out the half-hour allotment idea at the moment, from Lia Leendertz's book of the same name. I don't have the book myself, but have leafed through someone else's copy: I'm intrigued by the idea of giving the allotment regular but relatively short bouts of time, but disagree with her on a few points - she says, for example, that you shouldn't try to feed your family on this small amount of time, yet at the same time advocates not going up to the allotment at the weekend. So I've kind of adapted it: my mission is indeed to feed my family, and I do go up at the weekends (actually that's my longest chunk of time each week).

Monday-Friday: half-an-hour in the mornings between the end of the school run and starting work. This covers general planting out, earthing up, tending, troubleshooting, clearing beds, mulching, sowing new seeds.. whatever needs doing really. Except...

Wednesday: this is harvest day, when I go through and pick anything that needs picking. If we don't need to eat it, I freeze it that same day. This makes sure nothing goes to waste. I do pick things other times in the week - strawberries, for example, need picking over at least every other day when they're at full steam - but having a definite day makes it easier to keep on top of it.

Weekend session (usually 2-3 hours): watering, every week that we haven't had much rain; and either weeding or mowing. I do each every other week, so one week I'll weed through, the next I'll mow & strim the grass down. Other weekly tasks are picking over the crops again (as for Wednesdays), trimming off strawberry runners and pinching out tomato sideshoots. And I give the tomatoes an extra water with liquid feed added.

In addition to this, I fill the water-butt Wednesday and at the weekend to operate my wonderful automatic watering system, which is keeping the toms going beautifully!

So far it's working really well, on what I think is a minimal amount of time (good thing too given I'm juggling small kids, work, and my garden at home). It'll probably all have to change next summer, but hopefully I can build on this rather than starting all over like I usually do!