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Swiss Chard Update 3, or Winter Veggies 1


Long time readers may remember that I have overwintered Swiss Chard in my basement under lights for the last several years.  This fall I started my winter Swiss Chard from seed to compare it to digging the old roots from the garden. I also had some collards that I bought from Home Depot that were originally planted out in the garden but with a cool, wet fall, the slugs, and the deer they weren't going to get a chance to do anything so I dug a couple of them up and planted everything in a window box.  As you can see the chard is pretty tight.  I was going to thin them but they seem to be more productive the way they are.  They don't make as many big leaves but there is a lot more stem production and since we eat both the leaves and stems I am getting a better harvest this way.  In this 6 x 8 inch area I am getting a cutting (for 2 people) a week.  It took about 6 weeks to get started though.  I think the best approach is to plant some seed and transplant the older garden plants or if there is space in the late summer garden, start some from seed and then transplant them to the winter garden container.

The collards are basically taking over.  Since they are naturally much bigger plants their larger leaves are crowding out the radishes I also experimented with and I will have to keep them in check or they will start crowding out the chard also.  Given deeper containers and more space they would probably make a decent winter crop but as of now I have only trimmed a few leaves.  I am interested to see if they realize they have been through winter and bolt early in the spring or since the light and temperature has been constant they will think it is still summer and be productive for awhile.  But that will be another update.

Finally you can see one of my upside down fast food soda cup planters (see my earlier post) with parsley.  I planted my tomatoes too close to my parsley this year and the poor parsley struggled.  After the first frost killed the tomatoes I was cleaning up the vines and the cages and noticed this poor thing that had been struggling all summer and that I had totally forgotten about.  It had a few yellowish leaves but when I dug it up the root was about thumb size.  So I figured what the heck, brought it inside, and planted it putting the top of the container very close to the lights.  It took about a week for the first leaves to appear again and when they did I lowered it down from the lights a bit.  There are now 5-6 leaves and I am looking forward to a little fresh parsley this winter.

The winter growing test continues...

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