How To Grow Swiss Chard From Seeds STEP BY STEP? (SEEDS To HARVEST)
One of The Beginners Friendly Vegetable Plant Is The Swiss Chard, That Can be Grown With in a Few Weeks, Its Colorful Leaves Also Add beauty To Our Garden, So In This Post, We Will See Step By Step How To Grow Swiss Chard From Seeds, How To Care, Which Soil To Use, What fertilizer Works Best, & Harvest Method, So keep Reading.
Basics About Swiss Chard:
Swiss Chard Is a Leafy Green Vegetable Plant, Native to Medditranean Regions like Italy, Greece etc, Its Closely Related To Beetroot Plants, But The Edible Parts of Swiss Chard are Their Leaves & Stems, Not The Roots Like In Beetroots. The Swiss Chard Leaves Are very Nutritious, & Widely Used as a Salad & In Cooking.
When To Sow The Seeds of Swiss Chard?
The Best Time To Start The Swiss Chard Seeds Is In The Winters, Its a Hardy PLant That can be Grown In Warm As Well As Cool Areas. But The Most Ideal Temp, to sow Their Seeds is 15 to 24’C.
So Simply Sow Their seeds in The Early Winters, Or if You Live In a Cold Climate Country, Then You can Sow Their Seeds In Springs & Harvest Them In starting Summers. There are also Some Varieties Available To Grow In Warm Seasons. But In SHort A Cool Environment Like In Early winters & Springs is The Most Ideal Time To Grow Swiss Chard In Open Weather.
How To Choose the Best Seeds?
Another Important Thing For Growing Swiss Chard From Seeds Is Theb Quality of seeds. Choosing healthy & Growing Seeds Is The Key Things. Sowing Weak & Older Seeds Not Only Affect The germination Rate, But Also the Sprouted Plants Wont Be So able To Grow Healthy Big Leaves.
So Seed Is The Key to a Resistant & Self Sustaning Plant. Ideally Fresh & Growing Seeds With a Good Germination rate Should Be Your Choice, For The variety, Choose a Locally Grown Common Variety of Swiss Chard For The First Time.
Then You can Even Grow a Foriegn Swiss Chard, These are Some Varieties, The Upper Two Are Best For a Beginner. So Some Tested Seeds Are Also Added HereTo Buy.
Preparing The Soil & Pot:
Another Step To Grow Swiss Chard Plants From seeds is to Prepare a Seeds Starter, Any Good Soil Media can be Used as a Seed Starter, It Should only be Little Soft & Well Draining, Hard Mix Wont Let The Seedlings To Poop Out Easily.
On The Other Hand The Soft Seeds Media, Will Help Them To Sprout. You can also Make a Cheap Seeds Starter at Home, Follow This Guide. For The Pot, Choose any 4-5′ Pot With Drainage Holes.
Sowing Correctly:
For sowing The Seeds of Swiss Chard, Make The Soil Fully Moist & Then Place The Seeds equally Apart, Press Them Slightly To Make Soil To Seed Contact.
Then Add a Thin Layer of Soil Or Use Cocopeat. Just make Them Disappear, Dont Burry Too Deep.
Now Make The Soil Fully Moist, Do a Deep Watering using a Gentle Spray Bottle, First Water is Important so Do Deeply. Place This Pot in a very Well Lit Area A little Away From Direct Sun.
After 6 Days…
After around a Few days, Tiny Tiny Seedlings Of Swiss Chard Will Poop Out. The Problem That can happen At This Stage is The Leggyness of Seedlings, Make Sure The Seedlings Recieves Good Amount of Light, Otherwise They will Go Leggy & May Die.
After 17 Days…
After a Few Weeks The Swiss Chard Seedlings Will Keeps On Getting Bigger & Bigger, when They have a Few True leaves, Then You can Shift Them In a Bigger Pot. For The Pot I am Using a Wider & 5″ deeper Grow Bag, You can also buy It From Here. Its best Due To Excellent Drainage.
For The Soil Media, You can Use any Soft & Well Draining Mix, Just Make Sure Its Not Too Hard, & Use Some Compost in It To Make It Slightly Acidic. You can also Make a Good Potting Mix for Free, Follow This Guide.
Carefully Get The Seedlings of Swiss Chard Out of The Pot, try Not To damage The Roots, Better To do watering a Day Before This.
Make a Hole In The Grow Bag & Plant It Upto The first Set of Leaves, Its also called as Crown, Burry The Lower part & Press a Little. This Way Plant Each Seedling, Do This Procedure At a Cool Evening, Not in sun.
Now Water The Soil, don’t Through Water Over The Plants. Place This Grow Bag in a Bright But Shaded Area For a Few days.
After 21 Days….
Within a Week or So, Your Swiss Chard Plants Will Stand Straight & starts Growing, Now You can Move Them To a Sunny Area, Around 4-5 Hours of Daily Sun is Ideal, But at Least make Sure Of 1-2 Hours, Otherwise Problems Gonna Appear.
After 25 Days…
Now They Will Keeps On Getting Bigger, Just Keep The Soil a Little Moist, Do Some Soil Digging but Carefully.
After 32 Days…
Once Your Swiss Chard Plants Became 1 Month Old, You can Fertilize Them. use a Nitrogen Enrich fertilizer To Make Their Leaves Bigger In size. I am Using a Liquid fertilizer Made at Home Using Kitchen Base Ingredients, It works For all kind Of Vegetables, Its in Liquid Form, So Its Will Absorb Quickly.
Apply Once a week, 100 ml of This Is enough. detailed Guide On This Liquid fertilizer is added Here.
After 37 Days….
After a Few Weeks, You will See Your Plants Will Keeps On Getting Bigger, You might See Pests Attack, For That Use Neem Oil Spray From transplant every Week.
After 46 Days…
Now The Plants are Ready To be Harvest, The leaves are Thick & Fleshy, 5-6″ Bigger, Cool Nights Can Make Them Even Bigger,
To Harvest them simply cut One inch Above crown,
& Here We Have Our First Set of Swiss Chard Leaves.
Harvest all The Leaves Similarly. So Here we have Our Home Grown Organic Swiss Chard Harvest.
The remaining Plants Will Keeps On Growing new leaves Again, If The Season is Still Cool.
So its all About Growing swiss Chard Leaves From Seeds, Feel Free To check out This Guide On Growing Lettuce From seeds.
