STORY BEHIND THE ART OF MITSUKO SCHULTZ

Abundant Future: Cultivating Diversity in Garden, Farm, and Field

Ruby Red Swiss Chard

Beta vulgaris 'Ruby Red'

Swiss chard, or simply chard, is a highly nutritious leafy vegetable with colorful stalks. It is native to Mediterranean Europe, and not from Switzerland. Aristotle wrote about a red-stalked chard in 350 BC, and the ancient Greeks used it for medicinal purposes. Chard was described in 1753 by Carl von Linnæus as Beta vulgaris var. cicla, but since then its taxonomic rank has changed many times. Chard is a variety or subspecies of beet, and they are actually the same species, Beta vulgaris.

Heirloom ‘Ruby Red’ chard has red stalks and veins and was introduced to the United States in 1857. It was a novelty until after the Civil War, when its nutritional value was more appreciated. While it is mainly grown for food, it is still grown in some gardens as an ornamental plant. Red chard was possibly called “Swiss” only to distinguish the variety from that grown in southern France; but this plant does appear often in Swiss cuisine, and a Swiss botanist, Gerhard Bauhin, described the plant.

I planted ‘Ruby Red’ chard in my community garden plot in Los Angeles and they grew really well. Some leaves grew to a little more than two feet long. The flower was tiny, but the flower stalk grew to be a giant, a little more than six feet tall.

I also planted heirloom beets at the same time as the Swiss chard, and the beets also grew well. Beets and chard have similar leaves, but I chose to paint Swiss chard because of its more interesting bumpier leaves. When I planted them I didn’t know that they are the same species. Even though my beets weren’t my choice to paint, I enjoyed eating them a lot.

At first, I wanted to show how ‘Ruby Red’ grows, so I depicted the whole plant, but I didn’t like how it looked. Next, I painted only one leaf, focusing on its bumpy texture, and I liked that better than the previous painting of the whole plant. This was my first time painting Swiss chard. I enjoyed myself and now think that sometime I would like to paint another one.

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Read more about this artist’s work: 22nd Annual