Swiss chard is a biennial that you can get multiple harvests from. Leave it at least until you need the space or after it goes bitter next year. Also looks like many of your plants are suffering a nitrogen deficiency. Lots of carbon (like wood chips) can soak up the nitrogen in trying to compost itself. Without legumes or even just a more developed (more years of production) bed, you probably should find an acceptable nitrogen source for around your plants.

@Hickshomestead_Chelsea

26 күн бұрын

Do you think it's not because those plants are not summer thrivers? I'm hoping it's not my "compost" I bought last year that looked awfully woodchippy. 😫 some of those plants are planting directly in it. Hopefully when they're roots reach the earths soil, that problem will go away !

@arkonafan5690

26 күн бұрын

@@Hickshomestead_Chelsea if you think of doing nothing as neutral, as is the case with unmanaged plants, they have approximately the right amount of nitrogen. Store bought produce with chemical fertilizers get too much nitrogen and therefore get nutrient deficient volume. Just adding wood chips drops the nitrogen too low. Think of them as a compost pile around your plants. If they were a compost pile you would need way more greens to balance your browns. A cover crop last year would have worked. Now with plants already in the ground you need a bioavailable nitrogen quickly to help them recover. Compost tea would probably be best. One way to do that is put a bunch of weeds in a 5gal bucket, fill with water, let sit. Best to add a small aquarium pump with air stones to promote the aerobic bacteria. Also this woodchip/nitrogen problem will be worse with lots of water than later in the dryer part of the year. When the wood chips are too dry to compost they won’t absorb the nitrogen.