So lovely you could eat it up

IT’S the fifth meeting of the Underwings Garden Club at Dolores Mission School in Boyle Heights. Children sow and transplant vegetables, herbs and flowers into six new raised beds, heeding the advice of University of California master gardener trainee Karen Jenne. A crowd gathers to watch: other students, teachers, parents, grandparents, passersby from the neighborhood.

Most gaze in wonder at one curious crop with huge, dark crumpled leaves and thick rainbow-hued stalks. They ask: “What is it?” “What does it taste like?” “Who eats it?” “How do you cook it?”

It’s no wonder why they’re intrigued. The vegetable in question is chard, and the garden’s strutting peacock. Vividly colored and robust, chard is pretty enough to be called art. Few crops are as delicious, nutritious and easy to grow too. Now is a prime time to plant winter greens -- or reds, whites, pinks and purples, as is the case with chard. New colors keep coming to market, including selections of golden chard in spring seed catalogs.

“Everyone has added them,” says Josh Kirschenbaum, commercial buyer at Territorial Seed Co. in Cottage Grove, Ore. “Gold and yellow chard have always been around, but breeders have selected the strongest strains. Unlike before, they’re now as productive as the red, pink and green.”

Territorial sells ‘Golden Chard Organic,’ with color that intensifies as leaves mature. Johnny’s Selected Seeds of Albion, Maine, sells ‘Golden Sunrise,’ which has golden orange leaf veins and stems. California-based Renee’s Garden Seeds distributes the brilliant yellow ‘Pot of Gold,’ which owner Renee Shepherd recommends for containers “because it’s so pretty.”

At Dolores Mission School, development director Shannon Smith says a few adults recognize the chard and offer recipes for salads, sautes and soups.

Chard is sometimes called leaf beet or Swiss chard, a moniker food writer Elizabeth Schneider finds insignificant and staunchly refuses to use. Known botanically as Beta vulgaris var. cicla, it is called tian cai in China, cardes de bette in France and too often “What is that?” here in the states.

Although Americans seem less familiar with chard, it has a long history as an ornamental plant and versatile foodstuff around the world. Whereas we tend to cook the leafy part and chuck the ribs, discerning Italian and French chefs may savor the ribs and feed the greenery to livestock.

In his comprehensive online book “Beetroot,” British biologist and science writer Stephen Nottingham says the Romans introduced the potherb to the rest of Europe and the Near East. By the end of the 5th century, chard was eaten in India, and by the 7th century it was cited in Chinese writing.

The chard we plant today has changed little since ancient times. The Greeks grew colored chard much like the modern variety sold as ‘Rainbow.’ Renaissance Italians took a liking to dark-green chard with wide white ribs, an affection yet to wane. Ornamental varieties emerged in 19th century France: ‘Curled Swiss’ with extremely puckered foliage, and ‘Silver-leaf’ with short broad stalks, which is exactly like a sweet- and mellow-flavored import called ‘Italian Silver Rib’ from Renee’s Garden Seeds. (By comparison, Shepherd says ‘Fordhook Giant,’ a classic green-and-white variety, tends to be tough and is not very sweet.)

Chard is a member of the Chenopodiaceae, or goosefoot family, which also includes spinach, quinoa and, of all things, tumbleweed. Chard is descended from wild sea beet; it is basically a beet without a swollen taproot, a beet that puts all of its energy into leaf production. And, my, does chard produce.

Thin your seedlings a few weeks after planting, and you’ll have delicious baby greens. Later, by harvesting only the outer leaves and by leaving the growing heart in place, you’ll have a plant that can deliver food for most of the year. Shepherd just cautions gardeners to be patient and wait until a young plant has six or more stems before picking any.

The plant’s striking form and implausible coloring appeal even to reticent young palates and hard-core vegetable haters. Leaves may come green, bronze or burgundy, and celery-like stems and veins can be white, pastel or Day-Glo yellow, orange, red, pink or violet. The flavor of chard is sweet and slightly earthy, like garden beets, but milder.

The most popular modern cultivar, the chard that Americans love most, is ‘Bright Lights,’ admired for its bold pigments and fine flavor. This award-winning multicolored mix was developed by the late New Zealand amateur breeder John Eaton and introduced in the 1990s by Rob Johnston, owner of Johnny’s Selected Seeds.

Johnston shares this chard trivia: The brown, corky chard “seed” is actually irregular little fruit, bumpy seed clusters or “glomerules” containing several hard, black, shiny seeds. When you plant ‘Bright Lights,’ different colored seedlings will come out of the same fruit -- “tiny stable mates in different hues,” he says.

At Dolores Mission School, kids are planting red, yellow and white varieties and are harvesting tender leaves to eat at home. That kind of rainbow approach is one that edible landscape designer and master gardener Nancy Cipes fully supports.

“I plant chard in all my gardens -- all colors -- in raised beds at my house, at a Westside women’s shelter, the special-ed garden at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, and home gardens in Westwood and Mandeville Canyon,” she says. “I harvested the most gorgeous array this morning. The stalks are just glowing with color.”

Cipes says her father-in-law grew chard for 50 years.

“Now when I serve chard at dinner, my teenage daughter sings: ‘I’m in chard!’ ” Cipes says. “And I sing along because she’s eating it.”

Lili Singer can be reached at home@latimes.com.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Any time is right to grow chard

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Chard is more than delicious and nutritious. It’s eye-catching and can be grown easily in containers or in the ground. The plant is a biennial that usually is grown as an annual. Some tips on planting:

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Seeds: Each chard “seed” is actually a tiny corky fruit containing several seeds. They last three to five years when stored in a cool, dry place.

Season: Usually starts in February and March or in August and September, but in Southern California chard can be planted virtually year-round.

Siting: Plant in full sun or light shade and in well-amended fast-draining soil.

Planting: Sow seeds half an inch deep and 1 to 2 inches apart, in rows that are 2 1/2 feet apart. Or plant in blocks for higher production; allow one square foot for each plant. Seeds will germinate in seven to 10 days.

Thinning: Always necessary. If in the ground, thin plants so that they’re 1 foot apart. If in containers, thin to 8 inches apart.

Harvest: Baby greens will be ready to harvest within 30 days; mature leaves will be ready after Day 50.

Maintenance: Regular water and mild applications of high-nitrogen plant food. Spun row covers will keep out hungry birds and insect pests.

To learn more: “Beetroot,” an online book by Stephen Nottingham, is available at ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/beetroot.htm. The “California Master Gardener Handbook,” edited by Dennis R. Pittenger, was published by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources in 2002. Elizabeth Schneider has written two good books, both published by Morrow Cookbooks: “Vegetables From Amaranth to Zucchini” and “Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables: A Commonsense Guide.”

-- Lili Singer