Monday, April 29, 2013

Swiss chard

Blettes in French or silverbeet in the Queen's Aussie English. This is one of six or seven plants that remain of our fall crop; they overwintered in the jardin potager (kitchen garden). They're coming back and should provide us with a couple of decent spring harvests. The leaves are tender and sweet when cooked and the stems are delicious, too. It's best to cook them separately as the stems take a little longer to cook than the leaves.

Chard in the spring garden.

I've planted a row of sweet peas next to these already. One day soon I'm going to put in a row of curly kale as well. But today, while chilly, is clear and dry and I've got to take advantage of that and get the grass cut again.

6 comments:

  1. It's silverbeet in Australian English, but my guess is that it is chard to the Queen.

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    1. susan, oh, sorry! I'll update the post. :)

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  2. I've always assumed the Beatles used the name Silver Beetles because they liked the pun, which would mean the term was familiar to them.

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    1. That had never occurred to me! It may well be silverbeet in regional pockets around the UK -- England especially is like that. However, everyone I knew called it chard and it is most widely known as chard in the UK. I grew up calling it silverbeet in Australia.

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  3. J'en ai planté l'année dernier, mais pour savoir quelle goût elle a, il faut demander au lièvre géant qui prend le jardin familial pour un restaurant gratuit :-\.

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  4. Ah, the joys of country living.

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