You can notice Rainbow Chard due to its bright colored stems in the first place. The various colors make the vegetable stand out. Rainbow Chard contains wrinkled, rich green leaves. Some of the color variations of the vegetable are pink, red, purple, orange, gold, and white.
Rainbow Chards are available throughout the whole year.
Rainbow Chard is also known as 5-color Silverbeet and is often referred to as leaf beet.
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Amaranthaceae
Genus: Beta
Species: B. Vulgaris
Variety: Flavescens
Trinomial name: Beta Vulgaris var. Flavescens
Rainbow Chard Trivia
- Even though Rainbow Chard is a type of beet, it has an inedible root.
- Types of Swiss Chards resemble the taste and texture of perpetual spinach and is sometimes referred to as that.
- It can grow up to twenty-eight inches in height
Rainbow Chard Buying Guide
When buying Rainbow Chards in batches, you’re going to want to look for the batches with stems of various colors. All of them should have freshly cut stems and bright green leaves.
Vivid, big, and bright should be the three keywords you’ll want to inherit in your brain when you’re searching for Rainbow Chards. If they look pretty, they’re going to taste as good as they look.
Always avoid Rainbow Chards with browned stalks, and yellowing or wilted leaves.
Rainbow Chard Production & Farming in Texas
The best time to plant Rainbow Chard in Texas is in either late winter or early spring, although if you want fall crops, plant them again in September.
The perfect amount of sunlight is around eight hours a day, but 5-6 hours of sunlight daily will not hurt them all that much.
They can tolerate summer heat but they don’t thrive in it. They can also work throughout the frost but not through a hard freeze.
Pesticides
There are a few bugs that attack the vegetable and they’re not that hard to get rid of. To get rid of aphids you can spray them with water, and snails and beetles can be handpicked.
Geography
The plant has been mentioned in “The Herball or General History of Plantes” in 1636 but wasn’t commercially exposed until the 19th century. It appeared within a seed catalog in 1888 and was grown both as a food crop and as an ornamental.
To grow them in Texas, use well-drained soil and they do best in full sun but they can grow in partial shade.
Packaging
Greens are in general packaged either in plastic bags or just tied to their stems and sold like that. It’s the same case with Rainbow Chard.
Enjoying Rainbow Chards
Rainbow Chards can, of course, be eaten both raw and cooked. It has its application both as a salad green and as a leaf vegetable which is why it’s one of the versatile ingredients in the kitchen.
Chards are often used as a substitute for spinach. They can be paired well with several ingredients and some of them are garlic, pepper, citrus, tomatoes, olive oil, and some other ingredients.
Storage
Don’t wash Rainbow Chard before storing it as it will make the vegetable spoil faster. Wrap them in paper towels as you would with any greens and place them in a plastic bag with squeezed-out air. Put them in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator and they can store for up to five days.
Cooking
Sauteed Rainbow Chards with Garlic and Lemon. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it tastes even better.
To start, heat olive oil in a large pot and stir in the garlic on relatively high heat until the garlic is slightly golden, which is roughly about one minute. Throw in the Rainbow Chards in handfuls. When each batch starts to wilt, that’s when you add another one. Season with salt and pepper and cook for about eight minutes. Put the chards in the bowl and wipe out the pot.
Add olive oil again to the pot and throw in the chard stems. Cook on high heat until they’re crisp and tender for around five minutes. Season it with salt and pepper while stirring. Add the stems to the bowl, sprinkle with lemon zest and serve.
Nutrition
Rainbow Chards are healthy and will provide you health benefits in many ways. They’re good for combating cancer, managing diabetes, improving athletic performance, and preventing osteoporosis.
When Are Rainbow Chard in Season in Texas?
To find out when Rainbow Chard are in season in Texas, please check the seasonal chart below. Why is this important? We are rarely encouraged to think about the physical lengths our food travels before arriving on the market shelves. And all of this travel comes with a hefty environmental cost that is concealed from the consumer’s eye. One of the most salient benefits to eating seasonally is that you are effectively reducing your carbon footprint and supporting a more geographically sustainable food economy. Check other fruit and veg that’s in season in Texas now.
