First time with Swiss Chard

Hi all,

I am starting to harvest autumn vegs. This is my very first time with swiss chard and I have a simple question: instead harvesting the complete plant, like the one you buy in a supermarket, can I cut bigger leaves outside and keep the plant growing?
I tried to google and I found topics lile 'swiss chard cut and come again', but I do not understand if it works with a specific type of swiss chard or it's generic.

I just brought 6 weeks ago a set of winter veg plug plants from Suttons, half are swiss chard, and other half mixed leaves (quite bitter ones, but very tasty!)

TIA

S

 

Not cut, but break the leaf stalk off at the base where it joins onto the main body of the plant - like how you should do with celery or rhubarb.

If you cut then the cut bit that remains will rot and die back towards the plant and may infect it.

You can harvest in this way for about two years before it goes to seed. Even then, if you remove the flowers before it sets seed, you can keep it producing leaves but they will be smaller in size.

 

Just as an aside if you like Beetroot I wouldn't bother to grow Swiss Chard. Beetroot was originally grown for it's leaves not root! The leaves are very similar in taste to Swiss Chard. So you get the root and leaves to eat. I grew Swiss Chard Bright Lights a few years ago and while it looked pretty smart it didn't have as much flavour as the Beetroot leaves. I won't grow Chard again. Agree with @misterQ, my Swiss Chard wintered fine the 1st winter even up here in Scotland. Not quite so prolific year 2 and it legged up by year 3.