Herb / Cool season
Chives
A tidy clump that returns every spring with no help
Plant out byApr 20zone 6
- Family
- Onion (Amaryllidaceae)
- Sun
- Part sun (4+ h)
- Difficulty
- Very easy
- Days to harvest
- 30-60 days
- Spacing
- 6 in apart, rows 12 in
- Pot size
- 2 gal pot (great in pots)
- Frost
- Hardy
- Start
- Either
- Water
When to plant
Showing .
Averages for a typical garden in the region. Your local frost dates may differ by 2-3 weeks, check a local source.Too late this year (try fall)
In zone 6, start seeds indoors Feb 23 to Mar 9; plant out Mar 23 to Apr 20. Average last frost Apr 20, first fall frost Oct 20.
Units
Plant chives once and they will likely outlast your interest in gardening. They are a tough perennial in USDA zones 3 to 9. They die back in winter and push up fresh hollow leaves as soon as the soil thaws, often before anything else in the bed shows green. You can start them from seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost. A single clump from a friend or a nursery gets you cutting much sooner.
The one real problem is seed. Leave the round purple flowers on through summer and they drop seed everywhere. The next spring you find chive seedlings in the paths, in the carrot row and in cracks in the patio. Snip the flowers off once they open. They are edible, by the way, and look nice scattered on a salad. Bees love them too, so leaving a few heads on for a week is a fair trade.
Chives suit a pot better than almost any herb. A 2 gallon container on a sunny step keeps a family in garnish most of the season. Set it near the door, where you will remember to use it. Cut leaves down to about an inch above the soil and they regrow. Every three or four years the clump gets crowded. Dig it up in spring, split it into smaller clumps and replant, or hand some to the neighbors.
Things to consider
- Flowers left to ripen scatter seed across the garden. Deadhead after bloom if you do not want chives everywhere, or grow them in a pot set on a patio where stray seed lands on stone.
- Clumps get crowded after a few years and produce less. Divide them in spring into groups of several small bulbs, and replant the pieces at the same depth they grew before.
- Thrips and onion fly can attack, and soggy soil leads to bulb rot. A free-draining pot or a raised bed edge keeps most of that away. Many planting charts keep onion family plants away from beans, so give the beans their own spot.
Good neighbours
Keep apart
Pests to watch for
ThripsOnion fliesAphids
Questions about growing chives
How do I cut chives without killing the plant?
Use scissors and cut leaves near the base, about an inch above the soil. Taking a whole section at once looks neater than trimming tips here and there. The plant regrows in a few weeks, so you can cut the same clump several times a season. Leave a newly planted clump alone for its first few weeks so the roots can settle in.
Will chives grow on a windowsill?
Yes, on a bright windowsill with a pot that drains well. Indoor plants grow more slowly and come up thinner than outdoor ones. Some growers pot up a small piece of an outdoor clump in fall so they have fresh leaves through the colder months. Water when the top inch of soil is dry, and do not let the pot sit in a saucer of water.
What are garlic chives?
Garlic chives are a related plant with flat leaves and a mild garlic flavor, hardy in zones 4 to 9. They grow much like common chives, with white flowers instead of purple. They spread by seed just as eagerly, so deadheading matters even more. Many cooks grow both, one for eggs and potatoes and the other for stir fries.
Save this crop
Pin it to a garden board so it is there when planting time comes round.
Similar crops
Sources
General guidance for home gardens. Frost dates are averages for a zone or region; check a local source (in the US your county extension office) for local timing.