Chard
Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla · Amaranth family
Plant portrait
Chard carries broad leaves on thick stalks. Varieties may have white, yellow, pink or red stalks; they are grown for their foliage rather than for a large root.
Harvested part
The leaves and their fleshy stalks.
What to watch for
Look for young central leaves and thickening stalks. Unlike garden beetroot, the model mainly shows foliage and its coloured stalks without a swollen harvest root.
Growth stages of the chard
Plotilo illustrates the chard in 5 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the chard (the amaranth family): the beetroot, the spinach and the garden orache. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.