Growing Chives

We would not call chives indespensible, however they are a very handy herb to grow at home. Used widely in Frenck cooking, you can eat the stems and also the flowers.

And all chives are not the same, some are very low growing with fine leaves, some are taller with coarser leaves.

The botanical name for the common chives is Allium shoenosprasum and A.shoenosprasum 'Forescate' is a large flowerd tall variety with great pink flowers.

Garlic Chives, Chines Chives and Giant Chives are different species.

Related to garlic and onions Chives are a great plant for the kitchen garden, they small, can be harvested with a pair of scissors (as needed) and do well in pots and containers. They also have pretty little purple flowers if you let them get to that stage without cutting them. You can grow them indoors, in the garden or in pots, all work well for this easy care plant.

These are a 'cut and come again' plant, you can cut what you want with a pair of kitchen scissors, down to around 1 inch ( 2-3 cm ) from the soil level.

How to grow chives

Chives do best in a humus rich well drained soil in a sunny position. We like to dig in some well rotted compost and manure 3-4 weeks before planting in the garden, in pots we just use a good quality mix that is moisture retentive.

They grow in full sun, but we like to give them a little shade from the hottest part of the day, seems to keep them nice and tender, and we grow them to eat, not to look at. Remember that these are a little bulb, they can be divided each year and certainly every second year.

From seed chives will take around 2 years to produce a plant large enough to handle, so growing dy division is quicker and easier.

Harvesting Chives

Keep cutting chives throughout the season. In cold winters they will go underground, but will come back.

• Wait until plants are 2 months old from seed, or around 8 inches 20 cm tall.
• Cut back to 1 - 2 inches
• Fertilise with a liquid fertiliser are cutting.
• Repeat as often as they reach a good height.

Summary

• Full sun to light afternoon shade
• Humus rich moist buy well drained soil.
• Fertilise regularly
• Remove spent flower heads to prevent self seeding
• Divide the bulbs every 3 years, if left undivided they will not produce well and will eventaully die away.

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