Harvesting Chives from Your Garden

Harvesting chives sounds easy, but can be tricky if you’re not sure how to do it. The first few times I harvested chives, I thought I needed to dig up the individual bulbs (like the green onions you buy at the grocery store).

My chive plants are mature and very dense, making the task of digging up only a few bulbs almost impossible. When I tried it, there was so much woody old growth included, I couldn’t even eat them. It was gross. Plus, most of the tiny bulbs were cut or crushed in the process of digging them up, and that wasn’t pretty.

As it turns out, I was making the task of harvesting chives way too difficult. After doing some research, I learned that you don’t harvest chives by digging up the bulbs, you harvest them by cutting the foliage. But you can’t harvest just any foliage. If you harvest at the wrong time, or the wrong types of leaves, you’ll end up with inedible woody sticks.

How to Harvest Chives

The best time to harvest chives is either before they flower in the early spring or after they’re done flowering. I do both.

Harvest Chives When Young

Harvesting chives before they flower: Look for tender, lush green new growth in early spring. Yellowish leaves, thick leaves, flower stalks and old growth will likely be woody and inedible. To make chives easier to harvest in early spring, cut the entire plant down to the ground in the fall.

Tender New Growth On Chives

Harvesting chives after they flower: Deadhead chives after the flowers have faded in late spring, cut back the entire plant to within a few inches of the ground. After a few weeks, you’ll start to see tender and delicious new growth that’s perfect for harvesting. This tender new growth can be harvested throughout the growing season.

Deadhead Chives

To harvest chives, simply grab a handful of the tender, green foliage, and cut it off with clean shears.

Chive Harvest

Chives are easy to grow from seed. I grow two types, regular chives and garlic chives. Once your plant flowers, you can also collect the seeds to share with friends. Keep in mind that chive seeds are only viable for about a year.

Chives are delicious and can be used in countless recipes (I especially love them with eggs and in soups). Harvesting chives may take some trial and error, but once you have harvested them a few times, it’s easy to identify the right type of foliage to harvest.

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How do you use chives from the garden?

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Original article and pictures take http://getbusygardening.com/harvesting-chives/ site