I’ve learned a few key things over the last few years about helping chives to do really well in my garden so in today’s post we’ll be talking about how to grow chives!
Chives are some of my favourite herbs to grow because they thrive so easily, they’re one of the first plants to come up in the spring, and they can be used for so many different dishes. If you have a little garden space where you live, you should definitely learn how to grow chives. If you’re a new gardener, you should grow chives. If you’re planting a kids’ garden, you should grow chives. You get the picture. They’re really one of those things that anyone can grow. I love how cheerful and bright green they are when they pop up in early spring and they work just as well in a perennial flower garden as they do in the herb garden! These chives that I’ll be showing you today are actually in our little backyard flower garden because I love their cheerful purple blooms, but I’m definitely going to be adding some to the herb garden this year as well!
How to Grow Chives: The Basics
Chives are a perennial herb with a mild oniony/garlicy flavour. They work as a garnish on so many savoury dishes and my kids love to pick them right out of the garden to snack on! They also have cute little purple flowers that come out in the late spring and early summer. The best part about growing chives though is that they’re so easy to grow and they come back looking bigger and more spectacular every year!
How to Keep Chives Happy
Chive plants always look amazing in the early spring, but they can start to look a little sad once summer rolls around and their blooms start to fade. To encourage new leaf growth throughout the season, it’s important to pinch back the spent blooms, or better yet, pick the blooms earlier and enjoy them as a really fun edible garnish on your meals!
While chives can grow in shade, they really prefer full sun. If you grow your chives in shade, they’ll do fine, your plants just won’t grow to be quite so big and bushy. If you want your chives to really fill in though, go for the sun!
How to Grow Chives: Harvest Time
You can harvest chives at any point in time from when they first come up in the spring until the fall. It’s important to note that chives actually really love to be harvested and will do much better throughout the season if you harvest and use them regularly.
Always harvest the leaves from the outside of the perimeter of the plant and cut the leaves at about 1/2 in above the ground. Even though you’ll be able to find so many uses for them, it’s important to never harvest the entire clump of leaves at once. The plant needs some full leaves to be able to draw energy from the sun and ensure future growth.
I’ve made the mistake of just enjoying chives as an ornamental plant and only harvesting them sparingly and I’ve been disappointed when they’ve started to look a little less beautiful later in the growing season. Moral of the story: Use those chives and they’ll just keep making more!
And that’s really all there is to know about how to grow chives successfully!
Do you grow chives in your garden?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.