How to Grow Colorful Swiss Chard Microgreens Without Nasty Seed Husks

There are several very colorful varieties of Swiss chard microgreens. This article shows you how to grow (and not grow) Ruby Red, Golden Sunrise, and Fantasia Orange Swiss chard microgreens.

Like beets, Swiss chard microgreens often retain the hard, bark-like seed husk on the leaves as they grow.

We will explain our growing method, which removes 99% of these nasty husks.

Swiss chard microgreens aren't the easiest to grow, but follow our steps and overcome one of the most common mistakes. You'll soon be enjoying these tasty microgreens.

Swiss Chard Microgreens

You may have noticed that we only showed you two of the three Swiss chard microgreens mentioned in the introduction.

Above is Golden Sunrise and Ruby Red Swiss chard. Click any image in this article to expand it for better viewing. But where is the Fantasia Orange chard?

We had some problems with it -- No problem with the variety, or the seed, or the planting method.

Rather, it was a problem with watering, lack of care, and laziness.

But more about that when we discuss caring for Swiss chard microgreens.

How Much Swiss Chard Microgreen Seed to Use?

If you've read our articles on seed density, you know that seeding density comes down to the number of plants per square inch of planting surface based on the finished size of the microgreen.

We believe home microgreen growers need to pay more attention to that rule than commercial growers. Since home growers are more concerned with growing nutritious microgreens than those that sell them. 

What makes this a little more challenging, like beets, Swiss chard seeds often produce more than one plant.  They also show delayed germination.

So our first initial go-around was more or less a guess based on our previous results with Bull's Blood Beet microgreens.

Different Size Swiss Chard Seeds

Below are the Swiss Chard microgreen seeds of the three varieties we planted. In each tablespoon is 6-grams of seed. Click on the photo to expand the size for better viewing.

As you can see below, Swiss chard seeds aren't uniform in size. 

Not only amongst varieties, but even the same seed lot has variation. 

The orange chard has the largest seeds, followed by the red chard, and the yellow variety has much smaller seeds. 

In our experience, the smaller the seed, the less mass of that seed you need to produce a full tray of microgreens.  Let's see how that plays out as these seeds grow into microgreens.

In the end, we recommend to use 6.2-grams of Ruby Red or Golden Sunrise Swiss Chard for our Home Microgreens Tray.

The Steps to Planting Swiss Chard Microgreen Seeds

Below are Home Microgreens Trays planted with the above seeds.

We did not soak the seeds.

There was no issue with germination without soaking the seeds using the method below.

Notice that the trays' soil level is not at the top like we usually plant microgreen seeds. Instead, the soil level is down to the first ledge on the Home Microgreens Tray ( a great feature our trays have). 

This is because we are going to cover these seeds with soil. Not to improve germination, but rather, the seed husks will be removed as the plant forces its way through the soil.

Here's how we plant Swiss chard seeds. We fill the tray with soil to the second ledge and mist it with water to wet that soil surface.

Only wet the surface; we don't want to soak all of the soil profile. If the soil is too wet, it can lead to disease issues.

Spread the microgreen seeds as evenly as possible.

Cover the seeds with more soil, right to the top of the tray.

Wet the soil covering the seeds a bit more than the first surface; we want the soil moist down to the seeds.

Blackout Period

The trays are placed into a blackout.

For Swiss chard microgreens, this means that we cover the soil surface with another tray, the tray lid, or something else that makes contact with the soil. 

A weight is placed on top to push the lid onto the soil surface. Two to five pounds of weight is good.

Then the tray and weight are covered with a tea towel or some other fabric to exclude light. 

The trays are left like this for 5-days to let the Swiss chard seeds germinate and start to push up through the soil. Five days is a guideline; it may vary a day or two depending on the temperature, humidity levels, how deep the seeds are buried, and other factors.

But check on them around day 5. Most likely, they will look like the ones below.

However, these young microgreens are not ready to be removed from the blackout. 

Mist them with water if the soil is light brown and appears dry. 

Then carefully place the covers back on the trays and leave them for two more days.

These microgreens remained in the blackout for a total of 7-days.

Below is a photo of the Swiss chard microgreens 7-days have planting. 

Notice the middle tray, the Fantasia Orange Swiss chard microgreens, as expected, plant density is lower than the other as predicted by the seed size. 

Surprisingly, the Ruby Red has enough seeding density even though the seeds are only slightly smaller than the Fantasia. This is probably due to multiple plant germination from one seed.

Also, if you've grown Rainbow Chard (really just a mixture of seeds, not a variety) in the garden, then you know that the red chard is more vigorous than the orange and yellow. Below is a bunch I grew this year.

Putting the Swiss Chard Microgreens Under Lights

At this point, place the Swiss chard microgreens in a watering tray and give it a drink from below.

If you're just beginning to grow microgreens and want to know more about these terms and actions, see the video on the Home Microgreens Home page.

We found that almost any light will work for Swiss chard microgreens. No fancy grow light; in fact, the Swiss chard microgreens shown in this article were grown under two 4,000K cheap shop lights bought years ago at a box store.

We want to show that it doesn't take special lights to grow microgreens. Although, generally, the better the light, the better the microgreens.

Here are the inexpensive lights we recommend. They cost less than $8 each.

The Biggest Problem With Swiss Chard Microgreens (and Beets)!

Over-watering.

Swiss chard and beets are very susceptible to damping-off disease (I guess).

At least that's what it looks like. The stems of the microgreens get soft at the soil surface and collapse.

The take-away here is to be careful when you water. The cause of the above issue is I watered all three of the trays using a larger watering tray and added too much.

Instead, I should've dumped out any remaining water after 15- or 20-minutes.

That was the end of the Fantasia Orange Swiss chard microgreens 10-days in. It's okay, though, the seeding density is too low, and they need to be re-tested. 

Skip To The Harvest

Instead of showing you daily progressions, we'll skip ahead to the last day we took photos.

However, these microgreens could still be grown much longer. They only just reached harvest height. 

The Swiss chard microgreens below are 14-days old. So from seed to harvest in 14-days. We expect that they would continue to grow fine up to 30-days.

Maybe we will try that with the re-planting of the Fantasia Orange Swiss chard. 

Below are photos of the Ruby Red Swiss Chard and Golden Sunrise Swiss Chard 14-days after planting. Click image  to expand.

Are You Ready To Grow Swiss Chard Microgreens? Do These Things.

Swiss chard microgreens aren't that difficult to grow as long as you cover up the seed with soil to remove the tough, nasty seed husks.

Be patient as they take some time to emerge from the soil and grow large enough to be placed under the lights.

Try not to overwater them. Small amounts of water more often are better than flooding the watering tray.

Do those three simple things, and you'll be rewarded with beautiful Swiss chard microgreens.

Give Swiss Chard Microgreens A Try & Let Us Know

Leave a comment below if you're excited to grow Swiss chard microgreens and which variety you want to try or is your favorite!