Grow Your Own Chives 2009

• A great companion plant – their scent helps confuse pests such as carrot root fly.
• Grow to 30cm tall and has a mild onion flavour.
• Has masses of small, purple flowers in the summer.
• Likes full sun or partial shade.
• Water when dry.
• In Autumn they die back and re-emerge in the Spring.
• Young plants should not be harvested until late Summer in their first year so that they can establish a good root system.
• To Harvest: cut with scissors and always leave 5cm of leaves to continue growing.

Steve’s Mum bought me a chive growing kit from Wilkinsons at the end of May. It was only £1 and you get the seeds and the compost in a pot, so you just sprinkle the seeds onto the compost, water them and cover. They started growing the next day and I didn’t have to really look after them at all.

I’d left them to grow in the same pot outdoors and the roots were getting a bit overcrowded and pot-bound. So I transferred the whole lot into a new pot which was slightly bigger. But I wasn’t convinced this was the right thing, so I looked on the Internet.
It said I should have transferred the seedlings outside a month after sowing with 10cm (8in) between each plant. So I had to separate each bulb, which was a bit difficult as the root ball was so compact.

But I did manage to separate them all and the bulbs looked just like mini spring onions – the smell of onions was really strong too!

So I replanted these in my new small pots and I also put some in with the Rosemary and Thyme plants. Hopefully they’ll grow a lot stronger now they’ve got more room.

The photo below was taken 19 September:

All the chives that I replanted are doing very well as the ‘leaves’ are now thicker and they are splitting off into new growth. They were a great addition to my potato cakes!