Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I read somewhere about a harvest season for chard, but couldn't find any specific details.

I'm guessing I may have just gone past the harvest season for the plants in my barrel system but I'm not sure. I have very few of the large leaves I have been picking for some time, but now have lots of shoots reaching skywards that have multiple small leaves along their length, and a virtual bud at the end made of a collection of tightly placed minute leaves. Assuming this is some kind of flowering, should I just leave it be until next "season", or would plucking off these stems promote further growth of the usual leaves?

Thanks in anticipation,

pcal

Ive kept some chard plants way past a year but found they eventually loose flavour and become a bit bitter. Im not sure of the life expectancy of the plant though sorry.

I transplanted a chard that was shooting up a flowering stem into the soil garden amongst the wife's roses.
Daughter plants started to appear and the mother plant died after flowering.

I pulled a 2.3m high chard out this morning, the chooks have been enjoying the small leaves. As Charlie says, the leaves change flavour, I find they burn my throat when eaten raw, when the plants are over about 4 months old, although leaves from plants up to a year old are fine when cooked. The plants will certainly last over a year, but the best production is in the first 4 months in my experience, but it varies a fair bit from plant to plant.

I agree, Gunnagulla +1

Does this suggest that I should leave the plant in the barrel system until new ones sprout? Is it a seeding process from the flower heads (can I collect seed) or do the new plants separate from the root or stem?

I originally planted what was billed as "rainbow chard" although I gather that is more a marketing term for a mixture of colours than a specific variety. I had red, green and yellow stemmed plants all woven together in a bunch. Tried to separate them on planting but the risk of tearing off all the roots was too great so I left them growing in a single bunch. All those that have shot up the flower heads are of the red stemmed variety, and all those still producing larger leaves are of the green variety. The yellow ones seem to be hedging their bets at the moment. So, I'd rather not pull the red ones for fear of curtailing any remaining production from the others...

the new plants came up from the roots

Thanks. Think I'll just leave them be for a bit and watch with interest...