My mother used to make a dish she called mixed greens, or five greens with pork.
I have planted spinach, swishchard, beets, and collard greens,
I can't remember just how she did this know she also added danaline greens.
I also need to know if I can pick the leaves of the swishchard and use it in salads or must I wait and cut it all at one time in the fall.
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Other kinds of greens to consider are collards, kale, cabbage (including Napa or Chinese cabbage and also Savoy), mustard greens, escarole, baby Asian greens such as Komatsuna, Pac Choi, etc.
Swiss Chard and most other greens can be harvested as "baby leaf" greens - the kind that are packaged in the gourmet baby lettuce mixes at hefty prices! Most of these baby greens are harvested a few leaves at a time before 40 days has gone by, and the remaining plant can be left to grow enough leaves for another picking, or left to mature to a full sized plant, provided that the weather doesn't get too hot.
Greens usually prefer cooler weather, and some types will even "go to seed" if the temperature goes above a certain point. Once the plant makes this transition to maturity, it will try to flower and often sends up a seed stalk and then concentrates on producing a seed crop. The leaves often become bitter at this stage. In some zones, from about zone 7+, Swiss Chard planted in the Autumn will sometimes survive through the Winter for an early Spring harvest!
Greens go well with pork, bacon, pancetta, minced lean salt pork, sausage, etc. Here's my recipe for Italian Greens on Cooks.com that I use often. The Broccoli Raab is interchangeable with other greens.
If you can't get dandelion you might try turnip or mustard greens. I've heard something about a dish for good luck that has 5 (or 7) greens. Possibly eaten on St. Paddy's or Beltane. Anyone know what I'm talking about? Maybe I'm thinking of 7 (or 11) greens gumbo eaten on Good Thursday.
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