Leafy Vegetables

The vegie patch doesn’t need to be a sea of green! Yates® Silverbeet ‘Rainbow Chard’ produces striking coloured stems in yellow, orange, pink, violet and striped green, adding vibrant colour to the vegie patch or pots.

Silverbeet (also known as chard) contains lots of vitamins and minerals, is a good source of fibre and is low in calories. The nutritious leaves and stems are great for a stir fry, pasta, soups, savoury muffins and quiche and young and tender leaves can also be added to salads.

Here are the simple steps to growing your own rainbow chard:

In a full sun or partly shaded vegie patch, enrich the soil by mixing in some Yates Dynamic Lifter^® Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser.
Sow seed 10 mm deep, direct where the plants are to grow. Rainbow chard can also be grown in medium sized pots filled with Yates Premium Potting Mix.
Alternatively, seedlings can be raised in trays of Yates Seed Raising Mix and transplanted into their final home when they’re around 5 cm tall.
Give each silverbeet plant around 30 cm of room to grow.
Keep the soil or potting mix moist and seedling will emerge in 5-7 days.
Feed plants each week with Yates Thrive^® Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food to encourage lots of lush healthy leaf growth.
Start harvesting leaves from 8 weeks after sowing. Pick individual leaves as you need them by pulling (rather than cutting) stems at the base, starting with the outside leaves.

Pest watch: silverbeet can be attacked by voracious caterpillars. Protect plants with Yates Success^® Ultra Insect Control, which is derived from beneficial soil bacteria. Spray silverbeet plants every 1 – 2 weeks, including the undersides of foliage where caterpillars often hide, while caterpillars or their damage, are noticed.

Silverbeet can also be damaged by snails and slugs. Particularly while plants are young, protect them with a light sprinkling of Yates Blitzem^® Snail & Slug Pellets.