Growing Chives
Growing Chives - Easy And Rewarding
Growing chives (Allium schoenoprasum) is one of the easiest gardening chores you'll ever be faced with. This little member of the onion family grows in small clumps, with hollow blades called straws. The straws are a dark green color, and what you have is a low growing, very attractive plant. While they can be placed anywhere in the garden, they make a particularly nice addition to an herb garden. Chives are used as condiments with many food items, and have been under cultivation for several thousand years.
A perennial, chives can be grown from seed. If started indoors they transplant well. Depending upon your needs, chives can be planted in a row, or simply in one or more small clumps. If planted in the spring, the growing chives can often be harvested the same year. As they grow, small bulbs will form beneath the surface of the soil. As the plants die back at the end of the growing season, these bulbs can be left in the soil. They are very hardy, and will be one of the first plants in the garden to emerge in early spring.
Chives will grow in the same type of soil as their cousins - onions, leeks, and garlic. They like a soil rich with organic matter, and need to be kept moist. As the straws are harvested, they can be cut back almost to soil level. After cutting, they will grow back. Growth is quite rapid, and if you plant too many the plants will get away from you. As you harvest the straws, you'll observe new growth in the form of tiny, tender straws. These will be ready for harvest quickly. Chives are for the most part quite disease resistant, and insects don't care much for them either.
While growing chives is primarily for food purposes, the little flowers are often used in dried flower arrangements. The flower stalks, though edible, are tougher than the other straws, and generally not harvested. If you have several chives plants, you can use some for food and the others for flowers. Eventually, as the growing season starts coming to an end, the harvested straws will begin turning yellow at the tips, and fewer and fewer straws will be available for harvest. Once the plant starts to die back, cut it back to the ground and it will be fine until the next growing season.
The small bulbs multiply, and a clump of growing chives will increase in size as time goes by. Two or three clumps may meet the needs of a family of four. The straws, cut to lengths of about 1/2", are fine with meats, fish, in soups and salads, and are a great addition to a serving of scrambled eggs. One of the nicest features of this plant is they can be grown in a small container, or on a window sill. When you're harvesting some stalks, chew on one and see if its mild onion flavor appeals to you.