Grow Your Own Fresh, Organic Chives: A Simple Guide to Kitchen Gardening
Embarking on the journey of kitchen gardening can be as easy as tending to a pot of garlic chives on your front stoop, just as it was for me when my children were preschoolers. While I couldn't maintain a clean room for more than five minutes, nurturing chives in that terra cotta pot made me feel like a gardening pro. This small, humble herb is a fantastic choice for novice gardeners, given its forgiving nature and the abundance of fresh chives it can yield with minimal effort. In this blog, we'll explore the world of chives, from their two main varieties to growing tips and how to enjoy the bountiful harvest they offer. Let's get started! 🌱🌿
Onion Chives vs. Garlic Chives:
Before delving into the art of chive cultivation, it's essential to distinguish between the two main types: garlic chives and onion chives, also known as common chives.
GARLIC CHIVES: These have flat leaves resembling skinny blades of grass, and they can grow up to about 20 inches tall. Their delicate white star-shaped flowers cluster on petite flower heads.
ONION CHIVES/COMMON CHIVES: In contrast, common chives have thin, hollow leaves rather than blades and reach a height of 10 to 15 inches. It's onion chives that produce the stunning purple blossoms in spring, though their flowers can also appear in white, pink, or red.
As expected, onion chives offer a more onion-like flavor, while garlic chives impart a robust garlic taste. Both types have edible flowers that are highly attractive to pollinators.
It's worth noting that neither onion chives nor garlic chives are the same as green onions (AKA scallions), which have thicker stems that transition from green tops to crunchy white bases. While they all belong to the onion family, chives boast a milder flavor than green onions. 🌱🌼🌾
Are Chives Perennial Plants?
Chives are hardy, cold-resistant perennial plants that resurface from their roots every year. They are renowned for thriving in cooler seasons but can endure both hot and cold climates. In USDA hardiness zones 9 and 10, chives typically grow year-round, as long as they receive adequate hydration during scorching months. In regions with colder climates, chives may recede after a heavy frost or snowfall and then reemerge in spring, often among the first plants to awaken after winter's slumber.
Chives have another intriguing trait: they can propagate through dropped seeds and underground bulbs. To maintain control over their spread, consider harvesting blooms before they wither, ensuring a strategic location for future chive plants in your garden. Although it takes a couple of seasons for chives to spread noticeably, you can conveniently divide each plant using a hori hori or small shovel, yielding free plants to disperse across your garden.
With these characteristics, it's easy to envision a perennial source of chives in your garden year after year. 🌿❄️🌷
Where to Grow Chives:
Chives, being petite plants, require approximately the space equivalent to a teacup's circumference in your garden. Planting chives in the corners of raised beds or along the edges of container gardens can be a strategic choice. This isn't because your family will require an abundance of chives (a plant or two often provides more than enough); it's because chives serve as excellent natural pest deterrents.
Often dubbed "pest interrupters," chives emit an onion or garlic aroma that repels troublesome insects like aphids, Japanese beetles, caterpillars, and other leaf-eating nuisances. Therefore, integrating chives into any vacant patches of your garden is an excellent idea solely for this reason.
If you lack raised beds, chives thrive in containers as well. A container as shallow as 6 inches will suffice, but it must feature a drainage hole to prevent water stagnation, as no herbs appreciate soggy conditions. You can cultivate potted chives on a porch, balcony, even indoors on a sunny windowsill or beneath grow lights.
Chives can tolerate partial shade, but they prefer full sun. In regions with scorching summers, consider providing your chives with afternoon shade to prevent excessive heat stress. 🌞🌼🏡
How to Source Chive Plants:
Growing chives from seeds is a relatively straightforward process. You can either start chive seeds indoors approximately 6 to 8 weeks before the last expected frost in spring or directly sow the seeds into your garden once the soil is workable.
For those who prefer to skip the seed-starting stage, you can acquire chive plants in the form of rooted clumps or starter plants from your local nursery. Investing in these small chive plants offers the advantage of earlier harvesting, with the added perk of perennial returns year after year.
If you reside in a warmer climate, planting chives in the fall is also a viable option, provided they receive a solid 6 to 8 weeks to establish themselves before the first anticipated frost. 🌱🌻🌞
Simple Steps to Grow Chives from Seed:
Growing chives from seed is a rewarding endeavor, and it's not as complicated as it may seem. Whether you're starting indoors or directly in your garden, follow these straightforward steps:
STEP ONE: PREPARE THE SOIL: Clear the planting area of debris and add fresh compost if you plan to plant chives outdoors. For indoor seed starting, moisten your seed starting mix in a bowl to prepare it as a suitable medium for the seeds. Fill your seed starting tray with the moistened mix.
STEP TWO: SOW SEEDS: Chive seeds are small and challenging to distinguish against the soil. Attempt to sow only one seed per planting area or cell. One trick is to use a moistened index finger to pick up a single seed at a time. Chive seeds don't require deep burial; gentle fingertip patting ensures sufficient soil contact for germination.
STEP THREE: WATER: When planting outdoors, water gently to avoid displacing the tiny seeds. For indoor seed starting, water from the bottom of your plug tray. Ensure your grow lights remain on for 14 to 16 hours daily as soon as you notice signs of growth. Chive seeds may take a few weeks to germinate, so keep the soil consistently moist during this period. 🌱🌧️
Chives Plant Care:
Caring for chives is remarkably straightforward, and they don't demand intensive attention once established. Here are three essential tips to ensure your chives thrive:
GIVE CHIVES 6+ HOURS OF SUN: For chives to flower successfully, they require full sun. While chives can grow with just 4 to 6 hours of sunlight daily, they'll develop at a slower pace and may not invest energy in flowering.
START WITH GOOD SOIL: Cultivate your chives in well-draining soil. When growing them in a pot or container, blend potting soil with coarse sand and compost to enhance drainage and provide nutritional benefits. If you begin with nutrient-rich soil, you won't need to fertilize them frequently; the occasional addition of fresh compost or a pinch of worm castings every few months should suffice.
WATER CONSISTENTLY: Water your chives when the top two inches of soil feel dry. Although they tolerate some drought, maintaining a consistent watering schedule is preferable. Potted chives, in particular, tend to dry out more quickly than chives in larger containers or raised beds. 🌞🌿💧
What Are Good Chive Companion Plants?
Rather than focusing on what other plants can do for chives, it's more apt to consider what chives can contribute to your garden. Chives make fantastic companions for a wide array of crops in your kitchen garden or herb garden. Not only do they safeguard your carrots, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, and more from pests, but they also attract numerous pollinators when your warm-season plants require pollination.
Chives harmonize exceptionally well with perennial herbs from the mint family, including rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, and lavender, given their similar growth preferences. Creating a DIY rolling planter to house chives and an array of herbs is an effective strategy. 🌿🌻🐝
How to Harvest Chives:
Harvesting chives is a straightforward process, and they're ready to be harvested approximately 60 days after sowing seeds if you began with new chive plants. If you purchased a mature plant, you can start collecting a few leaves at a time immediately, though it's advisable to allow transplants several weeks to adapt before engaging in heavy harvesting.
Once your chive plants establish themselves, treat them like other cut-and-come-again herbs. This entails harvesting leaves, permitting the plant to regenerate, and then returning for subsequent harvests. Trim from each plant at least once a month to maintain its vitality and stimulate continued productivity.
Use clean scissors or snips to trim the plants approximately 1 to 2 inches above the soil. A handy method is to grasp several stems at once, as if gathering hair into a ponytail. Fresh growth emerges from the center of the plant, not the tips, reinforcing the importance of judicious cutting to maintain the plant's health throughout the growing season. 🌱✂️🌿
How to Harvest Chive Blossoms:
Onion chives typically blossom in the spring, while garlic chives tend to flower later in the summer. Although leaving some blossoms for pollinators is admirable, it's advisable to remove them before they desiccate and scatter seeds across your garden.
Chive blossoms possess robust stems compared to the rest of the plant and peak in flavor immediately after opening. To harvest them, snip the stems at their base, akin to cutting fresh flowers. If you don't intend to consume your chive blossoms (remember, they're entirely edible), you can enjoy their vibrant presence indoors by placing them in a vase filled with water.
Chive blossoms present a realm of creativity, as they likely offer a flavor profile you haven't experienced unless you've cultivated and harvested them yourself. You can savor the entire blossom or disassemble it and utilize the pieces as garnishes (the flower stems may prove too rigid for your liking). Onion chives, in particular, exude a lively onion flavor, making them ideal for crafting homemade chive blossom vinegar for salad dressings. 🌼🍽️🌸
How to Enjoy Chives:
Chives are at their peak flavor when freshly harvested, so exercise moderation when collecting them to avoid surplus. Incorporate chopped chive stems into salads, soups, stews, omelets, casseroles, baked potatoes, or any savory dish in need of a hint of extra flavor. If you've amassed an abundance of stems, you can create your own chive butter for melting over your favorite proteins or spreading across bread.
For excess chives, wrap them in a damp paper towel and store them in a container or jar within the fridge. Alternatively, you can freeze chives if they won't be consumed within a few weeks. Drying chives is not recommended, as they tend to lose their flavor during the process. 🍲🌱🍞
Time to Tuck Some Chives Around Your Garden:
Whether you choose to cultivate a solitary pot of chives on your front porch or place them strategically in the corners of your raised beds, the journey with these lovely plants promises quick success. Thank you for joining me in rekindling the kitchen garden, one easy-to-grow plant at a time. 🌿🏡🌱