Chives
Allium schoenoprasum
Edible-flowered allium that wards aphids and apple scab alike.
- Type
- Herb · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Allium (onion family)
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Purple and violet
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Fertile, moist
- Feeding
- A light feed in spring, and division every few years.
- USDA zones
- 3a–9b
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- May
- Pruning
- Cut the whole clump back hard in midsummer for a fresh flush.
- Sow indoors
- 42 days before the last spring frost
- Sow direct
- 7 days before the last spring frost
- Plant out
- at the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 40 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 14 days after the first fall frost
- Mar–Mar Spring Growth
- Mar–May Harvest
- May–Nov Flowering
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 5.9 in
- In-row spacing
- 5.9 in
- Between rows
- 11.8 in
- Square-foot density
- 4 per square
- Root system
- A bulb with fine roots beneath it
- Working depth
- 4–10 in
- Can reach
- 16 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 4–8 in across, about 0.5–1× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
Roots thread down from the base plate each season and are shed each season, and they go no further out than the leaves. Everything the bulb will store for next year is gathered in that narrow circle before the foliage yellows, which is why cutting the leaves early costs a flower.
The habit is Chives’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Cats and dogs
- Recorded toxic
Recorded as toxic to cats and dogs by ASPCA.
- When
- Cut from mid-spring, once the grassy clumps reach 15cm or so, right through to autumn; growth pauses in high summer heat and stops with hard frost. The flowers, edible and pretty, appear in late spring and should be picked just as they fully open.
- What to look for
- Upright, hollow, deep-green leaves at least 15cm tall; a clump thick enough that cutting a handful leaves plenty behind. Yellowing tips mean the leaves are past their best — cut the clump back and use the regrowth.
- How to harvest
- Grab a section of the clump and cut with scissors 3–5cm above the soil — cutting low is important, as trimming just the tips leaves browned, unattractive stubs. Take from the outside of the clump or shear whole sections at a time; snip flowers with their stalks (the stalks are tough, so discard them).
- How often
- A true cut-and-come-again herb: each section regrows in 2–3 weeks, so a clump can be sheared repeatedly all season. Cutting off spent flowers promptly redirects energy to fresh leaf production and prevents rampant self-seeding.
- Storing the crop
- Fresh chives keep about a week in the fridge wrapped in damp kitchen paper. They lose almost everything when dried — instead snip and freeze in bags or ice-cube trays, which preserves the mild onion flavor well. Flowers can be used fresh or steeped in white vinegar for a pink, oniony infusion.
- Onion fly & leek moth Maggots burrow into the base of onions, leeks, and garlic; leaves yellow and droop. Grow alliums under insect mesh and rotate to fresh ground each year.
- Rust Orange-brown powdery pustules on leaf undersides, weakening the plant over the season. Remove affected leaves, avoid overhead watering, and clear all debris in autumn.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Onion fly & leek moth
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Onion fly & leek moth
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
Roses, Carrots, Tomatoes, Apple trees
Both the slender leaves and the pink pom-pom flowers are edible and oniony.
Green-leaved herbs with purple and violet flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com