A few Qs, growing and harvesting chives, onion and garlic.
This is my first time: I started onion and garlic chives from seed and planted them in clumps in my garden. They get about 4-5 hours of afternoon sun. I started the seeds very late and only planted them in the ground in mid July. I didnt think any of this work but the plants look like they are doing well and the clumps are fattening and growing tall.
On the right is the onion chives and the left the garlic chives. (I had to put up chicken wire to continue on the path of non violence. There is a family of skunks living somewhere on my property. They viciously dig up everything I plant and tear it to pieces. I usually go inside around 8:30pm and new plants are dug out and destroyed by 9:30pm.)
a) I hear conflicting information. Some sources say just leave them alone the first year. This makes sense. Other sources say make sure to cut back to 1 or 2 inches 4 times in the first growing season. Should I cut back or not this season? Does harvesting actually make the clumps grow better, bushier?
b) In the second season when the chives will be able to flower, should one wait for them to flower before harvesting? I mean if you want to see the flowers? Will harvesting take energy away from flowering? Or is there a narrow window of time for flowering and if you harvest then the plants wont be able to flower at all that season?
c) How low do you cut for the best grow back? I see YT videos where the chive leaves are cut almost 2 inches from the ground and others where the cut at nearly ground level so you are getting some of the stiff white vegetative part. I suppose all of these ways will work but is there a best way that keeps the clumps vigorous and healthy?
d) Some of the leaves and a few of the entire clumps are floppy. What makes them flop? Is there something I can do about it?
Many Thanks!!
Comments (12)
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Comments (4)I agree with pnbrown, although I think that the answer for 2 applies to 3 as well. If you want large garlic bulbs, don't eat the green off the garlic. I plant the small cloves in a seperate area in the fall and pull them in the spring as I want for green garlic. But if you haven't tried it before, pull up a couple now and give it a taste....See MoreHarvested Garlic and onions
Comments (7)Thanks to you both! See, I wish I had thought about the rainy season and drying out onions. I honestly did not know they even had to be cured until this spring and figured I'd just *know* when that needed to happen. lol! Yes, the drying, from what I gather, is only for storage, but since I am the only one in my family that eats onions, it may take me about a month to get all of them eaten. The garlic would be used more slowly over the course of a few months. Tom, I can't believe you got 90 onions from 5 containers! I would say I got 20-30 from about a 2x4 foot space (shared with garlic), and they were all pretty small. I did use several as green onions during the spring, though. When do you know the onions are dry? I agree with you on keeping my onions outside. Maybe when it gets cold here (we do get quite a bit of cold here in the hills of zone 8), and for about 5 months of the year I could see keeping them outside or in the garage, but not in the wet, slimy, hot other 6-7 months of the year. Maybe I'll just keep them in the crisper and hope for the best....See MoreParsley and Garlic chive questions
Comments (10)Parsley-The plant will keep going without you doing anything, provided this is its first year of life. It is biennial and flowers, goes to seed and dies the second year. You can harvest parsley by either removing single leaves or by cutting the entire plant or sections of the plant depending on how much you need. The plant will continue to grow either way. Chives-Garlic chives do take a while to germinate, as little as 7 days or up to two weeks depending on the conditions. All plants don't germinate at the same rate so don't be alarmed that the other seeds germinated before the garlic chives. I easily get harvestable plants the first year. They can be trimmed and used when the plant is about 5 or 6 inches tall. Next year the garlic chives will have wide flat leaves instead of thin round leaves like the first year. -F. DeBaggio...See MoreGarlic Chives
Comments (24)Yes, thats true. Regular garlic leaves are edible, but are shaped differently compared to garlic chives. My garlic chives have no big bulbs in the soil and last throughout the summer months. The leaves a thick, and flat, but have a slightly raised middle the whole length of the leaf. Regular garlic leaves usually die out about now, and send up a stiff round stalk (a scape) if its the hard neck variety. These scapes should be removed as they take strength from the clove clusters in the soil. Once the regular garlic leaves die out, its ready to dig up. You never dig up a garlic chive, and because it has these small white flowers, you can collect the black seeds and plant it in new locations where it will form more clumps in future years. Garlic (soft neck types) can be planted in late summer and grow through winter. Garlic chives simply send up new greens every year in late spring. I believe the garlic chives will grow in heat and garlic should also grow, but hard neck varieties of garlic are meant for northern cooler climates, so choose the soft neck varieties, or even try elephant garlic with huge cloves....See More
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