Silver Rib
Italian Silver Rib Chard is a striking vegetable that delivers tender, mild greens in just 50 days from seed. This cultivar showcases beautiful silvery-white ribs running through deep green leaves, creating an heirloom aesthetic that looks as good in the garden as it does on the plate. Perfect for spring and summer planting in full sun, it reaches full harvest size at 18-inch spacing and rewards quick-maturing gardeners with abundant, succulent leaves.
Full Sun
Moderate
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?in H x ?in W
Biennial
High
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What sets Italian Silver Rib apart is the luminous quality of those silver ribs, they're not just visually striking but signal the tender, mild character of the leaves themselves. The 50-day timeline means you can sow in early spring and have harvestable greens before most other crops hit their stride. This is the kind of chard that makes gardeners slow down to admire what they're growing, even as it delivers on pure productivity.
Italian Silver Rib Chard is harvested for its tender leaves and distinctive ribs, which are equally at home in a salad when young or braised as a cooked green when mature. Both the leaves and the prominent white ribs are edible and offer different textural experiences, the leaves tender and mild, the ribs providing a pleasant crunch and slightly sweeter character.
Sow seeds outdoors in early spring when danger of hard frost is over. Plant seeds 1/2 inch deep and 2 inches apart in rows spaced 10 inches apart, or broadcast very thinly across a bed. Firm the soil well over the seeds to ensure good germination, as the irregularly shaped seeds need solid soil contact. If germination is uneven, fill in gaps with additional seed as the first seedlings emerge — young chard catches up quickly.
Italian Silver Rib Chard is ready to harvest around 50 days from sowing. You can begin harvesting outer leaves once the plant is large enough to handle picking without damage, or wait until the full plant reaches mature size. Harvest by cutting the outer leaves at the base, which encourages continued production from the center. The leaves are at their most tender when picked young, though the variety continues to produce harvestable foliage well into the season.
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