Advice on growing chard, please

[YinMnBlue]

Someone kindly gave me some baby chard plants and they are doing well in a big pot of soil and compost. The biggest is about 9 Cm tall.

The label says ‘remove young leaves from stalk to maintain growth’. When should I start this? They are all young leaves at present, surely? And we f I remove older leaves to eat and young leaves to maintain growth what will be left?

Does chard keep growing and producing new leaves, like salad leaves, or once I harvest it is that that?

I've grown rainbow chard (brightlights variety?) a couple of times. If you just pick the outer leaves here and there, there should be enough to keep growing.

I found rainbow chard bolted and went to seed rapidly when the weather got warmer, you will see the flowers starting to grow. At this point the leaves will get a lot tougher and not as tasty. So then the plant is kinda over in food terms and needs pulling up

I live in the s.e England and they were ok for a short while in spring then no good over the warm weather, but I had success growing them in autumn instead.

Thanks happysun.

I watched a YouTube video, and to prevent going to seed it said pluck out the flower leaves in the middle. But I couldn't really see the difference between those and the other leaves.

But I couldn't really see the difference between those and the other leaves The leaves look the same, but instead of growing in the centre of the rosette, the plant starts pushing up a stout stem. So start by pulling outer leaves to eat, then, as soon as you see a stem developing in the centre, cut it off, and eat the leaves from it either as spinach or in a salad. It'll respond by putting up more stems, so cut them off too. You'll lose the battle eventually, but you can get a few crops on the way.

I usually sow chard later in the year, about July, to have plants over the winter and in spring. Th so-called "hungry gap" is in spring (not winter) when the winter crops are finished and the summer crops aren't yet starting - chard is one of the vegetables that can help ridge that gap.