Swiss Chard

A season-after-season staple in Rosslyn's vegetable garden, Swiss Chard is sown alongside Kale and other leafy edibles like Bull's Blood Beets. This resilient garden anchor — thriving despite soggy clay soil, grazing Whitetail Deer, rummaging Raccoons, and other challenges — has come to represent the persistence, shared bounty, and homegrown abundance that we associate with Rosslyn. Swiss Chard bounces back reliably, usually outlasting fussier crops.

Woven into our gardening and harvesting routines, laughter filled meal preparation and shared meals, Swiss chard is a colorful through-line in Rosslyn’s broader story of stewardship (both property AND wildlife stewardship), holistic living, coexistence with pests (see “friend or foe” posts) and wildlife, and celebration of this property’s generosity.

Swiss Chard is a leafy succulent with rumpled, billowing foliage that is shiny-waxy green with corrugated veins the same color as the stalks. The fleshy blades and the colorful (or white-white) stems (aka ribs) are remarkably sturdy, enduring downpours, baking sun, and sudden temperature drops. The fluted, celery-like stalks can be red, white, orange, yellow, and pink, contrasting dramatically with the deep green, sometimes almost black, leaves. As beautiful as they are delicious and nutritious, Swiss Chard will likely remain a hallmark of our vegetable garden forever.