Spinach, Chard and Wild Greens
The first fresh leaves that you pick in
spring always taste the best, but they are really just as good to eat a
few months later, so keep picking and cooking your greens - they are
full of vitamins and minerals.
Green leaf vegetables
need to be picked when young and tender
and eaten as soon as possible after picking. They are not really
suitable for storing though you can keep them in an open container in
the fridge for a day or two. Spinach and Chard can be grown in pots and
containers as well as the open ground and, by sowing a succession of
varieties, and giving them a little protection in spring and autumn, you
should be able to pick fresh leaves for much of the year.
For the cook, it is easier to pick individual leaves of all these
greens: that way only undamaged, tender leaves are selected and there is
minimal picking over. However the gardener will have to remove the
large, outermost leaves that are clearly past it and pick out
potentially flowering stalks of chard. You can cut, at one time, the
whole plant of both spinach and chard, cutting about two inches above
ground level and leaving the stump to regrow; a few weeks later there
will be a nice flush of tender leaves.
The wild greens, Good King Henry, Nettles and Ground Elder also benefit
from cutting down to encourage a flush of new leaves; though in the case
of the last two the idea is to stop them regrowing - a vain hope.
Spinach is the best known
green leaf vegetable but is the trickiest to grow, needing plenty of
moisture to stop it bolting; it also dislikes the erratic temperature
swings we usually experience here in the south of Scotland. Utterly
delicious when young, some people find the older leaves too strong for
their taste so try chard instead.
Bought spinach sometimes comes, not as individual leaves, but as complete
little plants that have been cut off at ground level. These will need
teasing apart and thorough washing. Leaves that grow close to the ground
get copiously splashed with earth when it rains.
Chard, Swiss Chard, Spinach Beet and Leaf Beet,
this delicious vegetable goes under many names, which can make it a
nightmare to find in a seed catalogue; but persevere, it is a must-have
vegetable, looking attractive, being troubled by very few pests and
diseases and having a multitude of uses in the kitchen.
The brilliantly coloured stems of Rainbow Chard retain their colours
when cooked and can be served either separately or mixed with the
leaves. They take a little longer to become tender so I usually put
them, chopped, into the pan first and then add the leaves once the stems
are partially cooked. Because chard leaves grow very upright they don't
become as muddy as spinach but will still usually need a rinse before
using.
Good King Henry is a slightly
domesticated plant which grows enthusiastically and seeds freely. Do
not plant it near anything delicate. In fact it is a thug, growing
happily in semi-shade and poorish soil. The whole plant feels slightly
mealy and, as well as the leaves, the young flowering spikes are good to
eat. Pick tender leaves from the base when it first starts to grow in
spring, or from near the tops of the stems later in the season. These
last should not be muddy.
You probably won't need to plant the most useful wild greens: Nettles
(Urtica dioica) and Ground Elder
(Aegopodium podagraria) - but don't eradicate them completely.
Both are delicious when cooked and are very useful sources of greens at
a time of year when garden produce can be minimal. Pick individual
ground elder leaves, young and bright coloured ones, and the top bunch
of six tender leaves from nettle stems; the lower, larger ones can be
very stringy. Give these a wash.
All these green leaf vegetables collapse when you cook them, they are
also very light, so when I have given an indication of the weight
required for a recipe, the enormous looking heap piled up on the
scales really is right.
Nettles, Ground Elder and Good King Henry can be a little fiddly to pick
so I often use a mixture of wild and tame leaves if I need to use a big
lot.
The recipes can all be made with either spinach or with chard but will
have a more interesting flavour if you add at least some of the more
weedy leaves. Vary the composition depending on what you have available
and what you like best.