To thin or not to thin ~ Chard

Hi everyone,

Lovely to meet you all... in virtual! I've just joined this forum and will have a proper nosy later and sort my profile out, but for now, I got my allotment in March, so fairly new to it all. I have some chard seedlings growing and noticed there are a lot coming through very very close together. Do you think I can get away with leaving them at all, or do you think I need to thin them out? I'd like to just leave them and see what happens but don't want to risk loosing them! I've read that they can be thinned out with scissors?! Really not sure what to do, so any advice or a link to anywhere on the forum where this has been discussed previously would be greatly appreciated It's a very quiet patch, not many fellow veggie growers to turn to

Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Hi and welcome to the vine

I am rubbish at being good at thinning, but where chard is involved I would thin. It is one of those plants that can be a bit bruttish and they just keep giving. If you think it will be too fiddly wait until they are bigger then pull some up and eat the smaller plants.

[Noosner]

Hello hobo, welcome to the Vine and congrats on your new plot!

Re your chard, I don't think there's a lot to be gained by not thinning at all.

By thinning a little you'll get smaller plants with smaller leaves that will be nice to eat raw.

By thinning a lot you'll get big leaves, which is good if you intend to cook them because chard, being like spinach, cooks down to virtually nowt.

I've heard of thinning by cutting off at soil level with scissors to avoid disturbing the other seedlings' roots, but generally I can't be bothered to do that except with delicate plants. Chard in my experience is quite a robust plant and won't mind if there's a bit of soil disturbance.

There will probably be someone along in a minute who disagrees with everything I've said so don't take any notice of my advice if you don't want to! It is always good to do your own experiments and see how things turn out for you.

[Thelma Sanders]

You could leave them until they are big enough to use as small leaves. Just take whole small plants, until they're about 12ins apart

[WendyC]

I'd pull the whole lot up, but that's only as I think it's revolting! Seriously though, sounds like thinning is the way to go. Good luck with your new plot.

[Bren In Pots]

Yes thinning is the only way to produce eatable sized Chard leaves you can eat the thinnings though so its not like you're losing anything.

have a read here at the vines growing guide or Chard :-

Growing Swiss Chard | How To Grow | Grow Your Own

nearly forgot to say and welcome to the vine

[hobo]

THANKS everyone for the quick replies and all your welcomes they're spread over a few small rows, but i have quite a bit of space around them, so i think i'm going to leave one row then thin when they get bigger, take up the others from the second row and replant, and use the scissors on the ones in the third, so then i'm taking a leaf from everybody's book, and experimenting a bit!!

[Scarlet]

I love chard and I often leave a few plants to flower and usually get seedlings all over. I leave mine until they have a few leaves and then transplant them to where I want them, leaving the others to pick for salad leaves. I get rid of them when I want the space.

[hobo]

thanks scarlet, i like the idea of leaving some of them to flower and seed as well... on that subject I have some lettuce that has gone to seed at home, I'm thinking of planting that down the allotment too, and hoping it may spread some seeds naturally.. or do i need to take them from the plant and sow manually?... i'm very new to gardening

[Scarlet]

I do both methods though lettuce can be tricky to collect the seed. One day it's there, the next it's gone, blown off good luck!
# if you have lettuce that has already gone to seed, bag them and sow in modules. If you start most things off in pots you will have enty if stuff waiting in the wings to fill any gaps that you make when you harvest something.

[Guest]

I would sow lettuce seed rather than let it self seed. In fact I don't remember ever seeing any self seeded lettuce seedlings where I have grown it, however you get masses and masses of seed from a plant.

Edit: ask a question.......get different answers

[hobo]

haha my favourite answers are the ones that say 'just leave' and nature will take its course i'm into organic, synergistic and companion planting, and the convenience of less work but really appreciating all forum advice!! much less confusing than google

[Scarlet]

I would sow lettuce seed rather than let it self seed. In fact I don't remember ever seeing any self seeded lettuce seedlings where I have grown it, however you get masses and masses of seed from a plant.

Edit: ask a question.......get different answers

Ha, sorry NG! I edited my post after you had written yours I'm out and have intermittent wifi I have self seeded lettuce seedlings every year! Perhaps it depends on how well you weed

[Guest]

Ha, sorry NG! I edited my post after you had written yours I'm out and have intermittent wifi I have self seeded lettuce seedlings every year! Perhaps it depends on how well you weed

I think its more of a case of that 'many weeds they blend in'