Chard seed setting

May 20, 2017 09:36:20

A couple of our chard plants from last year lived through the winter and started producing again in early spring. One got big, leaned over, and looked like it was going to flower and, hopefully, set seed. But it has been stalled looking like the picture for a couple weeks. I have never tried to save chard seed before and wonder if I should give up on this one and eat and compost it, or if I should wait. It's not a big deal but this plant is taking up some prime real estate. Any thoughts or relevant experiences to share?

May 21, 2017 00:00:00

Mine do that. They take an awful awful long time to get round to setting seed and I generally lose patience because they always do it somewhere inconvenient like leaning over a path!

May 21, 2017 07:30:38

chip sanft wrote:One got big, leaned over, and looked like it was going to flower and, hopefully, set seed. But it has been stalled looking like the picture for a couple weeks. I have never tried to save chard seed before and wonder if I should give up on this one and eat and compost it, or if I should wait. ....Any thoughts or relevant experiences to share?

Beets (and chard) are generally self-incompatible, so as a single plant it likely will not set seed. It does look like it has flowers on it and you could get lucky and find a few of the flowers "filling" in case self-pollination occurred...they should get pretty plump and form a 'seed-ball' if seeds are forming within. You would probably have needed a cluster of plants that were all flowering in order for cross-pollination to occur and give rise to seeds. So I guess I would go ahead and either prune back the main stalk (if you still want to harvest some leaves) or remove it to make room for other items....

Good luck!

May 21, 2017 19:17:21

Thanks for the advice. I am probably going yo chip it out -- i bought quite a bit of chard seed this year. Hopefully next time we'll get more than one to flower at a time!

Jul 16, 2017 10:24:20

The Chard Strikes Back: One of the chard plants wasn't really in the way so, lazy as I am, I let it lie. Then I noticed little baby chards started sprouting up from it! "Will the circle be unbroken..."

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