Bright Lights

Oh my I put salt on everything,old habits are hard to let go!!!!

Tell me ~ do the Bright Lights tasty any different from the other Swiss Chards? Or just more colorful?

I'm going to be growing a different chard this year along with the Bright Lights:

Perpetual Swiss Chard
50 days. Extremely resistant to bolting, so you can feast on these dark green succulent leaves and white stalks the entire summer. In zones 7 and higher, it can become a perennial and bear for several years. Grows to 20 inches the first year. Use raw in salads, steamed with other greens, or include in quiche or lasagna for a savory change of pace.


So I'll let you know if there's a difference in taste. I'm assuming that the different colors in Bright Lights might have different flavors, but I didn't really notice that that was the case.

pod - I have never noticed a difference in taste between chards, though I normally don't eat them raw. I think that is where you might notice a difference if there is one.

Here's a dumb question - how big is chard, typically? I was picturing a plant like zucchini - about 2 -3 feet tall by about 3-4 feet wide. Am I completely off base?

And each plant is one color (plus green), right? Not multicolored stalks together, like they show in the photos?

Chard is cut and come again, so the leaves can get large (tall) if you do not keep them cut. They do not spread too much. I plant 4 per square foot if that gives you an idea.

Yes - each plant is one color. Someone started a thread a while back and it was funny - she had mostly yellow stalks. I have found the yellow to be a predominant color, but I plant in small numbers. Planting large amount would probably even out the colors you actually get.

They're roughly 2' tall and spread out at the top to maybe 18"-24". On the Bright Lights each stalk is a different bright color on one plant and the leaves were all green. Mine didn't have any green stalks.

Edited to add, I planted mine roughly a foot apart and they filled the wide row. But I wasn't diligent about picking it small either.

This message was edited Mar 3, 2010 10:24 AM

I can foresee me not being too diligent about cutting it back either. how pretty that must look with four per square foot!

Amazingly, they were still good and tender when cut at the large size. No bitterness at all. Yes, they are a beautiful plant. Hmm, they are a sturdy plant too, I wonder if they would help keep my Glads upright.

lol - they look great planted among flowers, so might be worth a try...

Mine look like there getting leggy in the container,just not enough sun yet!

"Tell me ~ do the Bright Lights tasty any different from the other Swiss Chards? Or just more colorful?"

podster, you'll find more variation in tastes depending on where the chard is growing and the weather at that time. Although taste is an individual thing all the types of chard I've grown seem to pretty much have the same flavor (wonderful!). However, age of plant, the soil it is grown in, time of picking, etc will play a role in that flavor. As for me, I like it at all stages, i.e., picked young and added to salads, picked larger and sautee'd with olive oil, garlic, S & P (salt eater here, too, Tropicman!) and for a finishing touch add some crumbled feta cheese! Yummy!

These plants easily grew and were picked from for two years. Which, by the way, Swiss chard is a biennial and shouldn't flower/bolt the first year regardless of what variety. And for best picking if you don't want to sever the leaves to the ground in a cut and come again fashion then only pick the outer leaves as they get big, leaving the innermost leaves to replace them. What a feast!

These plants were in their second year of growth at the time of this pic. As you can see, mulching around them will help keep the leaves nice and clean.

Shoe

And just to make you hungry...

A plate of steamed Swiss chard alongside a stuffed patty pan squash. Yowzers!

Shoe

That looks delicious, Shoe! And your chard is stunning. I wish I could grow mine year round, but it can't take the sumer heat;o(

Oh, that's how you eat patty pan squash! I couldn't envision what you would do with it, other than cut it up, which would ruin its pretty shape.

We call that acorn squash here!
And we bake it with brown sugar and honey!!!!!!!!!!!!!Yummmmy!

Nah, acorn squashes are bigger. Patty pans are smaller and flatter. I ordered an acorn squash (Sweet Reba) that's supposed to be resistant to powdery mildew. Looking forward to that.

Excellent info on the chard ~ thanks to all.

Shoe ~ I appreciate your thoughts on taste caused by soil, weather, etc. I have felt that to be true of other plants. As an example, a tomato that is sweet to me but acid to a friend when he grows it. I had suspected water and soil to have an effect.

This Swiss Chard ~ bright lights has to be the most eye catching seed packaging of this season. It really jumps out at you when you peruse the seed inventories. Good marketing strategy as it makes us feel good about eating healthy.

It sure is a pretty one, Bright Lights, ain't it, Podster! I used to encourage my garden customers on the wonderful virtues (and fun!) of edible landscaping. Bright Lights was always a plus!

Ditto what dividedsky says about the pattypan vs acorn. Acorn is shaped different, is of a different color, and the flavor is quite different as well. Tropicman, you might know it as "scallop squash" though as that is another common name. I think you'd like it, you should give it a try. But I sure do hear ya on the brown sugar and honey...I grew up eating butternut squash that way! Yummy!

Dividedsky, a recipe I hand out to customers at the mkt is:
......

Patty Pan Squash
(Scallop Squash)

Use the squash(s) that most resemble a bowl. (You can cook quite a few of these at a time. It’s up to the size of your steamer pot and skillet.)

Cut the very top off. Scoop out the innards of the bottom part with a spoon creating your bowl.

Put the top and the hollowed out “bowl” in a steamer basket and start cooking. While it’s cooking…

Saute some fresh onions and several cloves of smashed garlic in a bit of olive oil. When onions are translucent add squash innards. Cook until tender but NOT overcooked (overcooking turns them mushy and turning into nothingness)!

The onions/garlic/innards should be done about the same time as the “bowls and tops”.

Remove the bowls, gently, and place on plate or serving platter. Fill with the sauteed goodies and a dab of butter (if you like butter). Also, if you like, you can top with grated cheese. Put the tops on to hold in the heat and help the cheese melt.

This dish makes a great presentation and is delicious! Eat hearty, bowl and all! (Psst!…I like to add a little salt to mine but will leave that choice up to the diners, they can add it at the table if they choose.)

Horseshoe Griffin
MoonDance Farm
.........

Ya'll should give that recipe a try. Feel free to copy/paste it to your recipe files!

And now, back to the regularly scheduled program. Sorry to have gotten so far off topic, Tropicman. (But didja notice I use SALT in that recipe? Right there w/ya on that! *rin)
Shoe

Shoe ~ thanks for sharing that recipe. I meant to ask what yours was stuffed with in that photo but "sometimers" got ahold of my brain. Sounds delicious!

Raised on acorn squash slathered with brown sugar and butter! Yum!

Thanks for the recipe Shoe. I purchased some Patty Pan seeds I will be planting this weekend! Perfect timing!

Oh my mercy! Now I get to buy another packet of seeds! Gotta use this recipe. Thanks so much.

Patty Pan is a summer squash. You eat it at an immature state. The outside is soft.
Acorn & butternut are harvested when fully mature. The outside is very hard. A way to tell if it is ripe to eat is to use your finger nail. If you can't leave a mark, it is ripe.

We slice patty pan & other summer squash & fry them with onions in a little butter.

Cousa, another summer squash is very good stuffed.

Stuffed Cousa Squash
5 Medium Cousa. About 5" long.
1 lb Ground Beef
½ lb Pork Sausage
½ cup Rice
1 Small Onion Chopped
1 Egg
Salt & Pepper to Taste

Cut squash in half & hollow out seed cavity set aside.
Mix together other ingredients & fill squash cavities lay
flat in a large baking dish.

1 Large can Tomato Juice

Cover squash with tomato juice and bake at 350º until fork tender.

This recipe comes from Lebanon. Instead of beef they use lamb.

Cousa are on the far right.
Bernie

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this....but chard have a humongous root!!!! it is a tap root and I have grown it in containers 2.5 feet deep and the chard hit bottom and was growing higher out of the pot. Be sure the soil is good all the way down!!!!

Wow! That much root has anyone tried to eat it?

My thought exactly!

Hmmmm....will try it when I get another one!!!

Don't forget that chard is in the same family as beets!

Not just the same family the way tomatoes and potatoes are but the same species. That's why they are so similar to beet greens. -Doug

In New Zealand they are called Silverbeet.

If you take the 'strings' out of the stalks, they (the stalks, not the strings lol) are really good steamed with Hollandaise Sauce... pretty too!

After reading all the above I just had to buy some Bright Lights Swiss Chard seeds. They arrived today. I was hoping I could grow them in the fall, but evidently it is killed by frost.

Will it grow well in hot weather? I'm thinking of starting some seeds tomorrow (Friday).

As always, thanks for your help :)

It's not killed by frost, Honeybee. The plants I posted pics of above were two years old.

A hard freeze will zap it, and in the winter it'll be slow growing but with mulch it'll winter over and give you nice growth each spring.

As for heat, excessive heat will stall its growth but if kept watered it won't die. Taking care of it will give new growth as the nights cool down again. I bet those new hoops you have could support some shade cloth if you want to help the plants out a bit.

I'd soak your seeds tonight, just plain tepid water, for a quicker germination.

Darn, wish I had some chard for supper now!

Shoe

Thanks for the quick response, Shoe. I'll soak some seeds tonight.

I planted chard last fall, it should have grown find here but it didn't seem to come up. It was in a raised bed alongside some mustard greens, which did come up.

As I was cleaning the bed out this spring I found some little chard plants which I coddled. They are still growing! I planted some chard seedlings this spring and finally got some to come up. they were disapearing for awhile there, and the ones that didn't dissapear seemed stunted.

So I now have little chards. They seemed to take off when the weather got warm. It's starting to get hot now, soon we will have nights in the 80's and days temps in teh 90's to 100's. What can I expect out of my chard?

I want to dedicate this one raised bed to chard but I'm not sure what to expect in this area of unsufferable heat.

I had the same problem with my chard last year; it just seemed to keep disappearing. This year I put some out in the garden and when that didn't come up very well I stuck some in a four-pack in the greenhouse. Now I've got some much larger chard coming up in the four-pack but some tiny ones growing fairly well in the garden. I think they really do prefer milder weather, despite what I had read about their being cool temperature crops.