Winter chard

I decided to make an effort to have some sort of greens through a good part of this coming winter. I've got some kale and tatsoi going in the main veggie garden, but I want more.

I decided some colorful Swiss chard would be worth a try. I grew it this spring, and the plants made it through the heat this summer and are still going strong. More would be good.

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So I'm going to use the small triangle box this fall and winter as a chard bed.

I've cleared out all of the small pots that spent the summer here, but the malabar spinach growing overhead needs to be cut back a bit. It's gotten too cold for it on one or two nights, and it looks it:

So I chopped most of it, providing more access and better lighting:

There are still vines overhead, but I'll get those soon.

These little bulbs might be Muscari:

They were growing in a container, and they'll go back into one.

With the bed totally clear now I mixed in my mound of manure and turned to the plants:

I'm pretty sure I can divide this into individual plants, right? I've not tried this with chard before, so I hope it's not sensitive to root disturbance.

Some of them were too close together to separate, but I still ended up with a nice little bed of color:

Once it starts getting much colder I'll build a little frame around this bed, cover with plastic, and create a nice little greenhouse.

If the chard doesn't work I'll plant some spinach or other greens.

As I said, I'm determined.

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