Celebrating the harvest: Rainbow Swiss chard recipe

Swiss chard adds a burst of color in the vegetable garden...and on your plate

The vegetable garden has entered its productive season. We're still in the early days, which means the harvests are somewhat limited, but I'm now enjoying regular snacks of French Breakfast radishes, snow peas, and tatsoi. Even if you aren't growing these crops, there's a good chance you'll find them at your local farmers' market. I thought it might be helpful (and fun) to post recipes throughout the growing season. First up is Swiss chard, which is a member of the beet family, something that's obvious when you see it's cork-like seeds. It's a delicious green that grows well in early spring and throughout much of the summer here.

Before I launch into the recipe, it seems appropriate here to confess something: I have an intense, abiding love of the New York Times Cooking app. I wouldn't be surprised if my friends and family keep a stopwatch to see how long we're in conversation before I bring up a great new recipe I've discovered on the app. During dinner last night, as the spouse and I were enjoying beef stew we made from a five-star recipe (with over 25,000 reviews), we both agreed that the app is well worth the $40 annual subscription fee. What you'll find in it is a treasure trove of delicious recipes (and, sure, some that don't seem as great) and loads of inspiration. Some of that inspiration comes in the form of what they refer to as "no-recipe recipes," which may have a loose ingredients list but certainly won't include quantities. They truly are meant to encourage cooks to play around with the ideas presented and make a recipe that suits their tastes.

So, in that same spirit, I present to you a Swiss chard no-recipe recipe. Let me know if you try it and how you've made it your own!

Simple sauteed Swiss chard

Ingredients

• large bunch of rainbow Swiss chard

• onion

• garlic

• olive oil

• red pepper flakes

Suggested cooking instructions

1. Strip the chard from the stalks. Finely chop the stalks and set aside. Roll up the chard leaves and slice thinly.

2. Thinly slice the onion.

3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add some olive oil when the skillet comes up to temperature.

4. Add the onion and sauté for a couple minutes. Add the chopped chard stalks. Cook until soft.

5. Add the Swiss chard and allow to wilt, stirring regularly.

6. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more.

7. Sprinkle lightly with red pepper flakes.

8. Serve and enjoy.

Notes

1. Swiss chard cooks down a lot like spinach, which means it can virtually disappear as it wilts. Don't be afraid to use a lot.

2. I like cutting my onions thinly in half moons.

3. I have a great garlic press, so I'm devoted to using it, but you can chop or mince your garlic.

4. Wondering about variations? I sometimes grate a little Parmesan cheese on top before serving, sprinkle a bit of white wine vinegar or lemon juice at the end, or add some lemon zest when I add the garlic.

A comfortable place to sit

I have visited countless grand gardens over the years and learned a lot of lessons from them. One of the most important lessons is that giving visitors (and the gardener!) places to sit makes a garden far more enjoyable and welcoming. If you're spending any time creating an inviting garden or landscape, nothing says, "Relax and enjoy the view" more than a well-placed seat.

Every time I walk into a local plant nursery, I take a brief detour to the outdoor furniture section just so I can spend a few quiet moments in one of their hanging egg chairs on display. I love being enveloped by the generous cushions and the feeling that I'm floating on air. I always try to imagine where I could put such a wonderful thing on our property, draw a blank, and quickly move on to the real purpose of my visit, relieved that I don't have to justify the exorbitant cost of the chair.

The metal chairs with a perspective across the frozen pond

Although an egg chair would be lovely to have in one of my garden spaces, creating the ideal outdoor seating area doesn't really require a huge outlay of cash. The point is to provide a place to perch—and something as simple as a plain metal chair or a section of a tree trunk will do the job just as well. One of my favorite places to sit, for example, is in one of the chairs on the pond dock. They're just metal chairs that are part of an outdoor dining set the previous homeowners left behind. They're not exactly what I might want in that spot (I mean, a hanging egg chair might be perfect there), but they do the job. I love spending a few moments resting in one of the chairs and looking out across the water.

Tips for creating a good outdoor seating area

Choose a spot where you'd like to linger for a while

The inviting outdoor sofa in the Reading Garden

I created a garden area that I call the Reading Garden. It's a little nook with a pergola in the corner of the pool area that the previous homeowners used for a hot tub (which, I'm happy to say, they took with them). I planted rose, clematis, and jasmine vines at three of the corners. They've scrambled up and over the pergola and turned the spot into a quiet, enclosed space. I love sitting in there with a good book and listening to the birds and the trickle of the little fountain I made in a glazed pot.

Where do you like to spend time on your property? Do you like to recline on a chaise lounge and soak up the sun? Maybe you're more of a shade lover who likes to retreat to cooler zones. Scout out those ideal spots, and choose the ideal seating for them.

Consider the best perspective

The view from the Reading Garden sofa looking forward

I have moved the sofa in the Reading Garden a few times in an attempt to keep everything in view. I finally realized that was impossible (there are plants or views from every angle), so I chose the one that was most pleasing to me. It means if I want to see some of my hydrangeas, I have to look behind the sofa, but I enjoy an easy view of the sunny area, and I still get to see the shady side on the left and the boardwalk and fountain to the right. Plus, tucked at the back end of the patio, the sofa is hard to see from the pool, so it's perfectly private.

Is there a great feature you want to look at, such as a beautiful tree, a water feature, or a vista? Turn around in your selected spot, see where your best view is, and situate your seat facing that direction.

Think about how the seating looks from other perspectives

The sky blue bench above the pool

I placed a bench on the second tier of our pool garden because I like how it sits in the landscape. I use it primarily as a focal feature to draw the eye to that spot, but it may seem a strange place for a bench. Once you walk up there and sit down, though, it provides an elevated view of the pool and the small flower beds nearest the house. It provides a completely different perspective that I love.

Do you have a space a little removed from your house that you don't visit as much? It's a great opportunity for a colorful chair or one with colorful cushions to light up that space and draw you out for a new perspective.

Take advantage of natural areas to feed your senses

I love being in the woods. There's something so peacefully mysterious about them. When I didn't know what to do with one of the many benches the previous homeowners left behind, I decided to perch it on the edge of the woods. It's a wonderful place to sit for countless reasons, but what I love most is that moss grows throughout the area. That's enough to draw me out barefooted for a little quiet time.

The bench on the edge of the woods

My husband loves looking out at vast expanses, so another bench went under a large tree near the back of our property. He sits up there and looks at our neighbors' open field. I think it allows him to think expansive thoughts, and I love that.

Is there a spot in your garden where wild honeysuckle grows nearby? A place where the grass underfoot is like a plush carpet? Remember to choose places that engage your senses. You'll find it's all the more relaxing.

Take note of how the sun moves across your property

We have a small outdoor furniture set on the pool patio that includes a loveseat, two chairs, and a coffee table. From the early morning until 1:00 in the afternoon, it's a comfortable place to sit. But once the sun fully clears the roof of the house, you're basically plunged into full Georgia sun, which will quickly cause even the most well-hydrated individual to droop.

Try to have at least two areas where you can sit and enjoy either sun or shade—whichever you prefer—in any part of the day. And if you'd like to sit wherever you want whenever you want, a patio umbrella (that's easily moveable) can take care of the problem of too much sun in a pinch.

A final gentle reminder for the gardener

Places to sit are necessities in the garden and around any landscape, but a lot of gardeners find them a bit challenging. In fact, outdoor chairs, sofas, and benches often don't function normally for gardeners. All of mine seem to be loaded with a spring in the seat that only deploys when I sit down. Otherwise, how could I explain my inability to sit for long periods? Or could it be that as soon as I sit down, I notice a weed just over there that needs pulled or a Clematis tendril over there that needs woven into its support structure? No doubt the other gardeners reading this are now chuckling to themselves.

So for all of you who love getting your hands in the dirt and creating beautiful garden spaces with perfect places to sit, try to take time to relax and enjoy it all. That spring device likely isn't installed in the seat; it's probably a mechanism in our own brains that—with practice—we can override.

Planning the vegetable garden

It's been raining here for the last two days, which means it's the perfect time to start looking at my vegetable garden planner and determining what will fill the 12 raised beds I have in what I like to call the potager garden.

For the last two years, the potager hasn't been as productive as I would like. Historically, this would lead me to double down on everything, but I've decided to take the opposite approach. My goal is to simplify so I can focus more on growing a few things well rather than spreading myself thin. I'm scaling back both on how many varieties of vegetables I'll try to grow this year and how many plants of each I'll add to the garden.

Cutting back will also allow me to dedicate the four large beds on the corners of the garden to cut flowers—which means I'm already down to eight beds for vegetables. I'm excited about this change, though. I think the flowers will have a positive impact on the overall beauty of the garden, and they should boost the productivity since they'll draw a whole host of pollinators. Plus, while I don't miss running the flower farm, which was truly back-breaking work, I do miss having rows of beautiful flowers that are solely for cutting to brighten the house or a friend's day.

The garden in (nearly) full production two years ago

Cutting back will be a bit challenging, but it's a lot easier to plan a vegetable garden when you map out where you'll put everything. A garden layout provides great visual cues for what your garden can and can't accommodate. In previous years, I've used a garden plan that I had carefully measured out and drawn on graph paper, and then, in typical me fashion, I laminated it—because I'm a retired professor and need a good excuse to use my set of dry erase markers and because it seemed far easier than drawing the map every year. This year, I just inserted a table into Microsoft Word with the appropriate number of rows and columns that would translate into one square being equal to one foot. I did, perhaps, go overboard once again by shading the table, but really it's ridiculous to think I'll stop being me altogether, and now it will be easy for me to print out a fresh and aesthetically pleasing plan every year.

A map of your plot also gives you the opportunity to jot down planting information such as the necessary spacing between plants, so it can not only help you plan where everything will go but also serve as a handy set of instructions you can take out to the garden with you. For example, you can sow sugar snap peas directly in the soil 2" apart, whereas with tomatoes, it's best to space them 2' apart and start seeds indoors. That's information you can consolidate on your map. You can also include the dates you plan to plant out seedlings or press seeds into the soil.

The garden plan in action

In my garden, onions and garlic already claim two of the vegetable beds, and Centaurea (bachelor buttons) and Nigella (Love-in-a-Mist) have been quietly growing in one of the corner beds throughout the winter. I'm going to put 10 Dahlia tubers in one corner bed, and the other two beds will start with Gomphrena (globe amaranth), Ammi majus (Queen Anne's lace), Helichrysum (strawflower), Lathyrus odoratus (sweet peas), and Scabiosa (pincushion flower). I already know I have far too many plants of each variety to fit in the beds, but the map will help me sort out how many extras I have of each that I can cheerfully plant in the ornamental beds all around the house. And, once the hardy annuals start going over, I'll replace them with the hardy annuals like Zinnia and Cosmos.

The arches (in the weed-infested potager last year)

The map is also useful for working out your succession planting, which involves planning what you'll plant to take the place of an earlier season's crop. I usually start my green beans indoors so I can easily slide mature plants into the space left behind by the sugar snaps once they've gone over. I use cattle panels as arches over the central walkway for the climbing plants like peas, beans, cucumbers, and melons, and they allow me to really stretch my growing space. I can't recommend them highly enough. They add a beautiful structure to the garden, and in summer, when it's blazing hot, I can harvest beans hanging through the arch while I'm standing in shade. Your map will give you the ability to figure out what you'll tuck up against the cattle panel and what you can grow in the rest of the bed. And, if you go the Word table route, you can keep the copies of your planting plans, put dates on them, and use them to help you manage your crop rotation from season to season.

So I'm not telling you that you should draw out a plan for your planting this season (largely because "should" is the worst word in any language), but I am encouraging you to give it a try. And if you do, let me know how it goes for you!