One is a chive, but there’s never just one
Let’s say you have seven leftover spinach raviolis and it’s time for breakfast. You, of course, anoint them with olive oil, sprinkle on dried basil and chopped fresh moringa, but instead of minced garlic add chopped garlic chive leaves. This was my breakfast this morning, and my first thought looking down at it was, “Man, I should open a restaurant.” My second thought was, “No, I shouldn’t.”
If you don’t know, garlic chive leaves look like flattened garden chive leaves but taste like mild garlic. One leaf is a chive, but seed packages and catalogs say chives because they figure you’ll have more than one leaf. Indeed, garden chives can be ambitiously productive, and you’ll have plenty leaves. Early on in my gardening adventure, someone must have given me a starter clump because I don’t remember ever having a garden without garlic chives. They’re as easy to grow as oregano.
The leaves sprout out of a non-edible small tough bulb, and the bulbs always clump into clusters. The clusters expand over time, and the roots of the packed clumps become denser than you might expect, so the best plan is to dig up the cluster every two or three years, separate clumps and replant. This makes for healthier plants plus it maintains control because garlic chives intend to spread and conquer. The foliage will die back during really cold weather, but the clumps will resprout with vigor in spring.
As best as I can remember, garlic chives have been a mainstay in Asian cuisine for at least 4000 years. They are easy to grow and versatile in the kitchen for ambitious unskilled cooks like me. The leaves are waiting to be harvested throughout the growing season, and new leaves replace them.
This time of year, tall stalks will reach above the foliage, and edible buds develop on the end of the stalks. I once had a neighbor from Thailand who considered these buds a tasty specialty in Thai cuisine, and some mornings, I would find I had fewer buds than the night before.
These buds open into attractive florets of tiny white star-shaped flowers appreciated by bees and butterflies (and cooks from Thailand). Eventually the flowers develop papery envelopes containing little black triangular seeds. These seeds are focused and know exactly why they are on earth– drop all around or blow in the wind, find soil and make more garlic chives. They are at home all over eastern Asia and on at least one rocky hillside in northern Madison County.
After flowers fade, trim the entire clump back to 2-3 inches. Use the harvested leaves for mulch.
The plants can be grown as ornamentals because of the winsome white flowers standing above the green foliage, but beware of their ability to self-sow. Garlic chives are classified as an invasive species in Australia. A preventative strategy would be to clip the stalk before the flowers make seeds.
I remember years ago as a gung-ho naive young gardener saving seeds at the end of the year because it was easy and I was learning about saving seeds. Then it dawned on me the garlic chives are perennials, they successfully scatter their seeds without my assistance or permission, so I did not need to save their seeds. But I meant well.
Garlic chives are easy to use. Harvest a few leaves and snip them directly onto your favorite mishmash of rice with vegetables. They provide a mild garlic taste. You can also add snips to pasta sauce, burritos, stir-fries or scrambled eggs. It’s easy. Sprinkle snips on top of your lentils and barley – why not! It’s still a free country for now.
Clever gardeners who also cook could grow garlic chives in pots near the house for quick retrieval while cooking. I have some on my deck, but there is also a patch that sprouted uninvited in a front flower bed. Garlic chives are like that – give them a clump, they’ll make a cluster.