Donn, agree with all you said but we don't get them all year long as you do. However they sure are hardy and are one of the first signs of spring, sometimes they start sprouting even when some snow remains on the ground. I use chives alot but always have more than I"ll ever need. Yes a real treat to the herb garden and I especially enjoy their flowers.

Aren't they great!? I plan on adding Garlic Chives this coming year too :D
Here's a few pic of the Chives in May this year...
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Sometime in September, I dug a clump up and divided into 4 clumps for another area....it couldn't have been easier :D

Vera

I am a great admirer of the chives tenacity.

A couple years ago my chive clumps got too large for their own good so I dug them up, selected a 2" or so chunk to replant and tossed the rest on the compost pile.

I did this as part of the late fall garden clean up.

I am a passive composter meaning I don't really manage or turn the pile, I just let it rot on it's own.

The winter storms came and dumped the snow, then the weather warmed and the snow melted. The chive clumps were upside down (root side up) on the pile and they were green and growing!

This is in zone 5.

I love plants that are real troopers like chives.

I was thinking of doing a chive salute too! Great minds think alike! I am in love with garlic chives - great flavor, tough as nails, and gorgeous white blooms in the late summer/early fall. I sent out a bunch of those seeds in the newbie seek packs in hopes others would enjoy them too.

I never met a potato that coudln't be improved by a chive!

I've been thinking of planting chives for a few years now, but just haven't gotten around to it. I really love the blooms on them, never mind their culinary uses. So they're not overly aggresive, huh? Won't take over my garden...?

Dee

Dee..If you deadhead them, so they won't reseed, the clumps expand slowly.

The blossoms are also quite tasty in salads or vinegars!

So they're not overly aggresive, huh? Won't take over my garden...?

Dee

I can't say they won't overtake *your* garden, but they don't overtake mine. Too much variability from one person's experience to another's to say they won't take over yours.

The pretty flowers end up forming highly fertile seeds which will germinate readily.

If you are in the habit of raking or tilling the garden soil then you may spread the fallen seeds and they may 'take over'. If you just leave the soil as is they will just expand their clump. In 2-3 years they begin to decline in quality as the clump is 12"+ in size and they are overcrowded.

Dig and replant a 2" chunk for renewed vitality.

Another possibility is to dead head all the spent flowers before they have a chance to mature into fertile seed.

I've never allowed mine to set seed until this year for saving and have never had volunteers. The rest of the time I have always deadheaded them when they start to fade...that means harvesting my chives clear down to about 2"-3". Otherwise if you just "deadhead" the chives you will get a lot of hard ugly brown stems in the clump. This way you will get a nice new flush of new growth and thicker clumps. I used to snip as much as I needed from the top (maybe 2" all across) for any given moment, but found out by doing that I left behind ugly straw colored tips. It will still do that when you cut back to 2" but it's low enuf to be un-noticed and will soon be grown out in a hurry.
I harvest 2x a year. After the first spring flush of flowers, I don't allow them to re-flower and snip them out as I see them forming so the second harvest will be all tender green minus stems.

Vera

Thanks for the replies, guys. Maybe I'll give them a try. Do they grow quickly from seed?

Dee

I have to add my praise for chives. When DH and I first moved to WI, we rented an old farmhouse. It was in April, and the snow had just disappeared, the grass was just starting to green up and nothing was growing next to the house but a shrub rose and, you guessed it, chives! They were sprouting through rocks and dead grass all around one corner of the house. It was like they were welcoming us! When we had to move to the apartment we're in now(also in April), the only thing in the building's raised bed was our old friend chives! I thinned them out, added some other herbs and made that corner "my" herb garden. They always seem to be the "anchor" in my herb gardens.

I winter sowed garlic chives this year for Swallowtails. It's great to read it has other uses.
Donn - you said, "They drive off nasty bugs which like to eat other herbs and veggies" so I've been looking up more info on that. I found a link that says it repels APHIDS so I think I'll try planting it with my milkweed which reeally has an aphid problem in the summer. I can't spray the milkweed since it's for Monarch cats so the garlic chives might be a great solution if it works. Have you noticed if it repels aphids?

I also found while I was looking, that Basil (Ocimum basillicum) repels asparagus beetles which I've really been having a time with, and I'd never heard of Silver Curly Chives (Allium senescens glaucum). I think I might need that too. lol

Chives rock!

They do grow great from seed, although they probably won't flower much if at all the first year. The great thing, though, is that you can start eating them as soon as they are a few inches tall (and it doesn't take long). They definitely do come up early, too. Mone started poking up little lime green leaves in march, poking through the inches of sleet we had at the time. They are now dark green and 8 inches tall.

Chives contain sulphur compounds which repel all sorts of insects, including Aphids and Japanese Beetles. Interestingly, their flowers are very attractive to bees, which seem immune to the sulphur.

You can also make a potion from the leaves which can be used to treat fungal infections, mildew and scab on plants.

I should get out there tomorrow and plant out those Garlic Chives too! Will they bloom this late summer/fall? I had no idea about the Swallowtails and Garlic Chives! Thanks for the info.

Vera

I read somewhere that the flowers from chives are great in salads. I think they would be quite pretty.

Anyway, this seems like a perfect opportunity to ask a question about chives :) I WS'd some probably back in February, but they are still not up. Should I try another batch or is it normal for chives to take a while?

I WSed some chives too, also back in February. (Mine aren't up yet either, mo girl)

So, with these insect-repelling qualities, I guess it's a good idea to plant chives throughout the vegetable and flower gardens?

Dee

Last year, I sowed them March 5 and they started germinating April 24.

I spent about an hour yesterday, transplanting volunteers closer to the area I wanted them. The soil was very wet, and they pulled up easily, with tiny little bulbs. I just poked new holes for them and plunked them in.

Thanks Donn - I'm so glad I planted these now.
MoGirl - Mine have been up quiet awhile. It was warm in March and I was sitting my container in full sun. They came up before that cold blast hit. Maybe now that it's warming up again, yours will show up.

I'm so glad that this post showed up because I just WSed garlic chives yesterday and after reading all these great post I'm glad that I did. I'm wondering what does one seed do? Will one seed give you a clump or does it take several seeds growing together to do that? I planted several seeds in a Sunny Delight container will these be ok like this? My plan was to take the whole batch and plant them as one or would I get more mileage out of them if I break them up into 4 or 5 clumps.

Strouper

Dee and Mo girl, mine were sowed the first week of February, and just the other day one tiny sprout was trying to push up. They are almost the last thing to germinate for me from my early WS'n containers. I got impatient and sowed some indoors, but those haven't germinated yet either. Everyone says how effortless they are to grow, so I'm beginning to think I'm doing something wrong.

Strouper..I sow and plant them in 4" square plant bands made from OJ cartons. I do Scallions the same way.

I think this will be my last year for sowing Chives. I'll have enough clumps to propagate them by division.

Anyone have thoughts on interplanting a rose bed with chives and 4o'clocks? My mother's roses get tackled by J.Beetles every year, and I'm thinking between the two she'd have less of a problem.

*shrug* Figured it couldn't hurt to ask. :) I've got a couple of sets now, I keep mine in pots. A few years ago I had so much of it I gave away huge chunks to whoever would take them, since we were moving. They've been enjoying it by the house since then. :D

Ditto on the Chives, Donn
I LOVE my garlic chives. They go into just about everything. Put them in tossed salad, they give them a great taste and look. Put them in potato salad...ditto. Put them in sauce or whatever I stir fry or as part of a marinade...yummm...and they just keep coming all season. I think I need to grow more.

You know what else I like that I knew next to nothing about before I WSed it? Lovage. It tastes like a stronger version of celery and it is wonderful in chicken salad, nice in stews or tossed salads...You can use the leaves or the stalks and you just use less of it than celery (the flavor goes a long way). And it's perennial!

Linda

Ditto on the Chives, Donn
I LOVE my garlic chives. They go into just about everything. Put them in tossed salad, they give them a great taste and look. Put them in potato salad...ditto. Put them in sauce or whatever I stir fry or as part of a marinade...yummm...and they just keep coming all season. I think I need to grow more.

You know what else I like that I knew next to nothing about before I WSed it? Lovage. It tastes like a stronger version of celery and it is wonderful in chicken salad, nice in stews or tossed salads...You can use the leaves or the stalks and you just use less of it than celery (the flavor goes a long way). And it's perennial!

Linda

My established chive clumps are growing like mad, & we still had snow falling here 2 days ago! I agree that they are so versitile in food, but last week I picked a handful & plunked them in a tiny vase with a dark purple crocus & it made the cutest little spring arrangement! Tasty & attractive-how can you go wrong?

Regarding chives as aphid repellant: I always plant a small clump of chives beside each rose that I plant. Yes, it works and has for the last 20+ years! Yaay chives!

Thanks for bringing this back to the top Christie. I missed it when it was originally posted. I winter sowed plain old chives last year and they overwintered in the bottom of the milk jug. They came back like champs. Now I'm going to do more and plant them all over the place.

I'll never forget when DS#2 picked pretty chive flowers for me. He was six years old. I was pregnant with DS#3 and experiencing morning sickness for the first time. Talk about intense fragrance! ~LOL~

O.K. I'll plant the chives awready. Somebody sent me seeds (THANKS!) I'll plant them in front of the roses...

Chives chives chives I love chives. They are in the small garden near my frint door and produce edible leaves from late fed to mid december. The plants have moved with me from the ground to pots back to the ground for 10 years. Anywhere my chives are is home.

No germination on my WSown chives. :(

I'll have to sow some more seeds, I guess!

Dee

Same with me Dee. I went ahead and tried one more little pot with a generous sprinkling of seeds a few days ago, and I guess I'll see what happens.

I got my chive seeds from valueseeds, how about you? I've had pretty good germination with seeds from there, but there have been a few with nothing . . . although it could be user error in my case.

My Garlic Chives are planted now...have been but they sure are slow to get in gear. I wonder if they will bloom this fall?

Getting ready to cut all the chives back to about 4" come this weekend. I like cutting the chives into about 4" pieces, laying them out flat on a cookie sheet and then after they been in the freezer for about 30 minutes quickly dumping them into ziplock freezer bags. The dumping into bags and back into the freezer has to be done lickity split because they thaw really fast :D

They keep forever.

Vera

mo girl, I think I got my seeds from ValueSeeds too. Iam going to try another sowing this weekend. Now that I want them, it seems like I am seeing them everywhere, lol!

:)
Dee