About this variety
The vegetable that earns a place in the flower border as readily as the vegetable patch. Rainbow chard carries broad green leaves on tall upright stems in scarlet, crimson, orange, yellow, pink and white, all from the same packet. With sun behind them the stems glow like stained glass.
It is the same species as beetroot, bred for leaf and stem instead of root. The leaves cook like spinach but bigger, sturdier and milder — far more useful in a pie or a bake where you need the leaf to hold together. The stems eat somewhere between asparagus and celery, softening to a real sweetness when slow-cooked.
Cut the outer leaves and the centre keeps producing, so one plant crops for six to eight months. It is also far more forgiving than spinach or lettuce, tolerating part shade and dry spells that would send either of those straight to seed.
