Chive

Hello,

I am growing some chive in a bucket. I got it by shearing a big chive plant into smaller pieces. The thing is, my chive looks a bit sad. What I mean by that is that usually when you have a clump of chive it looks nice and bushy, but now it just has a few blades (the motherplant looked that way too by the way). I would like to know if there is a way to stimulate my chive to become a nice bushy clump again.

Didn't fertilizing help?
I grow my chives in the ground and in a pot. I fertilize the one in the pot when it looks weak, and it always helps.

I grow my chives in containers only, as they are very invasive. Never had a problem with them, just hit them with water once in a long while. If you are in a very cold area, they can look sad before they perk up for spring. Mine are blooming already and I should probably start harvesting them.

I love chives. I start eating them as soon as they are about 4" (10 cm). I love to eat flowers too. I agree with Megan that they are very easy to grow.
In Netherlands Zephyros doesn't have much winter, and chives need cold periods to flourish. Maybe that is a problem? In this case my idea would be to grow new plants every year from seeds, which are easily available.

I started to give it fertilizer a few weeks ago (you dilute this with water). So maybe I have to be a bit more patience then. The motherplant was not mine to start with, and maybe they didn't take care of it very well. I don't think it has to do with the winter, because it was very cold this year (we had actually a lot of snow this year and could go ice skating). And my neighbours have a nice and bushy chive. Do you think it might have to do with the location where it stands in the garden?

I don't know of any specific location requirements, chives are pretty resilient. However, if you got yourself some chives by hacking a clump off a bigger plant early in springtime, surely it has some root trauma. I'd say give it some time.

Zephyros, my parents in Poland have always grown chives as an annual, removing plants in the fall, and sowing seeds in the spring. They sprout quickly and grow even faster. Why don't you try growing new plants from seeds? It's worth trying.
(chives like sunny position). I started my chives from seeds a few years ago.

P.S. Now I remember - you did have strong winter this year!

I think I am going to give my chive a chance. After all, he only got another location and better nourishment only 2 weeks ago. And shearing it from the motherplant seems a hard treatment to me. I think I should have some patience, and I have nothing to lose with it. I can always ask a new plant/ seeds for my birthday .

I think it was colder in Poland than in the Netherlands, since it is more land inward.

If it is only 2 weeks - yes, give it a try and wait. What is you plan for using chives?
As for the winter - I think that in Poland was even colder then here in Michigan.

Well, I love to put it in my scrambled eggs or to make a sandwich with cheese and top it with some shive. It is not something I do everyday and since I am alone, I don't need great amounts of chive, but I also like it standinding on my window-sill. So then it looks nice when it is bushy and everything. I would have liked to start a square foot garden (I actually made a box for it last summer), but there was a change of plan since I am now studying at a school that was my second option and therefore I had to find a room near the school, and it doesn't have a balcony or garden. So now I am turning my window-sill in some kind of square foot garden . It makes the room look nicer too. Do you have some other nice recepies for chive? Or suggestions for other plants that can be raised in a window-sill.

You could always make a compound chive butter and freeze it.

I didn't know that it is possible to put butter in the freezer

Sure you can! I only use unsalted butter, but you can freeze any sort.

The easiest way to freeze a compound butter is to refrigerate it until it is a little stiff but still workable. Then work it into a log inside a sheet of waxed paper, twisting up the ends like a Tootsie Roll. About an inch / 3 cm works. Freeze solid. Then just slice it off as you need it.

Here is a link. Alton uses a mixer and so forth, but you can still do it by hand. Just don't MELT the butter to mix in the herbs. video link, associated recipe link

Megan's compound butter sounds good. To bad that my family doesn't use butter except for baking and cooking.
I use chives in every recipe which calls for onion or green onion. So I put it in salads of all sort, on potatoes, in scrambled eggs (we eat eggs very rarely though), and once I baked bread with chives. Bread with chives was good, and I would do it more often but we are lucky, here where I live, to have two European style bread stores plus Panera Bread (chain of small restaurants) has the best sourdough bread, so one gets lazy when it comes to bread baking.
Zephyros, you can freeze many foods. I freeze for example bread. Since it is not possible to go to the store every day I buy my good bread for the whole week and freeze it. Then I take as much as I need from the freezer and heat it in the microwave for about a minute for 6 slices (time depends of course how much you are heating). Tastes as freshly baked.

As for the plants which can be grown on the windowsill there are many varieties of dwarf vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers especially suited for windowsills. Herbs should be easy to grow. Once I've grown dwarf tomato in my basement under the artificial lights (during winter) and I had fruits.
Let us know how your chives is doing.

After studying my chive (I like to watch my plants and take pictures sometimes of different developing stages. Its the scientist blood in me I guess.) I noticed that when I had to cut the leaves, because they tend to get a bit long, more leaves grow from one cutted leave (I see 2-3 new leaves growing from the one cutted leave). I think, that if you want to keep your chive nice and bushy, you have to cut the leaves regularly (not to much at once ofcourse), to stimulate growth. I think this makes sense, at least for me. I mean, in nature animals might nibble a bit on the plant and go away. So the plant is stimulated to recover and grow taller/more bushy.

My Chive is starting to look a lot better. I cut it to the ground before Christmas, and now it is looking a lot happier than last year. So you see, if you want to put some effort in something, you can get nice results. I have no flowers in it though. Maybe it needs the cold to develop flowers, and ofcourse it is not very cold in the windowsill. Not that it is a huge problem.

So glad to hear your chives are doing better. I love chives. The ones I have in the house don't do nearly as well as the ones outside in the garden but I do have some that I can put in eggs or a sandwich. The ones I grow in the house always stay a little bit thin. Perhaps you are right about them liking the cold weather. Keep trying with them. They might like a little bit of compost sprinkled at the base of the plant. It will give them some extra nutrients without burning the leaves.

Do you grow anything else?

Gwynn

Hi guys,

I hope it's ok to ask a question relating to chives since the topic is already chives. I'm a little confused about all the talk about hijacking a thread. I sure don't want to hijack anybody's spotlight. But it seems that Zephyros' chives are doing better, so I thought maybe it wouldn't hurt. I've planted chives - they haven't come up yet. But I noticed on the seed packet after I'd bought and planted them that they are garlic chives. Has anybody had any experience with garlic chives? Can they be used in the same way that regular chives would in cooking and salads, etc?

Thanks for any information.

Sherry, when we hijack someone's thread we get off on a different topic or doing silly things like joking and fooling around and then we end up ignoring the original poster's question. I think it is okay to ask a question about chives since it is a post about chives.

I have tried growing garlic chives and have not had good success...for whatever reason, I don't know but I know there are people on here who have grown them. So, that is a great question and one I want to see answered.

Gwynn

Sherry Owens I don't think Roberts rules of order are enforced here if it feels good do it seems to work here. Garlic chives once started can take off and become a nuisance if you let the flowers drop their seeds. Mine just showed up as volunteers. Starting them is reported to be easy from seeds. They take 10-15 days to germinate if planted 1/2 inch deep. That much depth surprises me for only 10-15 days germination. The articles I just read also says they need good drainage. I do know mine self seed to the nuisance degree. Once started they should do well in a pot also.

Ok, westie, your advice would be not to let them go to seed. I'll watch that carefully, for sure, thanks. That's the second thing I've bought that turned out different than what I had intended. I thought I was buying regular salad cucumbers - then noticed after I'd planted them that they were the pickling kind! Man, it's tough when the old eyes can't read the fine print any more! Gonna have to start taking a magnifying glass with me when I look at seed packets or plant labels! LOL! I'm not sure I'm into pickling things. I did read online that the Boston Pickling cukes were ok for salads, etc, too. I hope so.

Do you use the garlic chives the same way in cooking or salads or with sour cream & baked potatoes as you would regular chives?

According to this: http://www.heirloom-organics.com/guide/va/guidetogrowinggarlicchives.html , it would appear you can use regular chives, garlic chives and/or Chinese chives all the same. There are some good ideas on this heirloom organics site. From my experience, regular garden chives don't grow as tall or generously as do Chinese chives, but both are sure good on a baked potato with sour cream!

Ok, thanks much, Nonna.PapaVino. I appreciate your post. I thought surely you could use them the same, but I'm glad to hear confirmation. I like garlic & I like chives, so hopefully I'll like the flavor of the garlic chives. I'd think it would be a good combination with sour cream and potatoes. Actually, now I kinda want a baked potato, even if it has to be without the chives this time! Thanks to all who posted a reply to my post.

Well, I don't mind the hijack. I am trying to raise some garlic chives from seed as well. I am not really successful at the moment. Although I have 1 leave coming up (I hope it survives this time). I am going to try to sow some more. I just have to be patient I guess.

Like parsley seeds, I've had the most success with chive seeds when they were planted in the fall. Haven't researched it, but guess some winter chilling might encourage sprouting. Unlike baby parsley plants, baby chive clumps don't mind being moved should they sprout in an inconvenient location.