Chives

Chives in themselves are quite common and easily grown from small pot-fulls that are on sale at most plant outlets. They can usually be found amongst the growing number of herbs and vegetables being offered for sale. However, there other plant members of the same general Allium (Onion) family (see also Garlic) that are less common and perhaps a little more interesting. Many are not offered for sale as ready growing plants and can only be obtained by growing them from seed which will be produced by all Chives if they are allowed to produce their pretty purple flowers. However, when growing chives you should chop off the developing flower before it has chance to develop as the edible, grass like stalks will become too big and thick to eat. Cutting the top of an old clump of Chives hard back should encourage fresh, tender, young shoots again.

Allium Tuberosum - Garlic Chives.
Garlic Chives, is a less common variety of Chive that can be grown just like the perennial, ordinary Chives, but as their name suggests, they have a little of the added flavour of Garlic. Although not quite as hardy, Garlic Chives are widely cultivated and used in cooking throughout India, China and Asia generally, because of their spicier flavour.

Allium Fistulosum - Welsh Onion - Ciboule.
This Allium is closer to being an onion rather than a Chive, but does not develop large bulbs like a true onion, and instead forms a clump as do Chives. Growing much smaller than normal onions and more like a Salad, or Spring Onion, small bulbs can be picked and used as such. The tops of the onions needn't be discarded as they are quite thin and juicy and can be chopped and used like Chives. This old fashioned “Bunching,” “Welsh Onion," or “Ciboule,” is supposed to be a “Heritage,” plant, and as such, under the horticultural rules, should not be sold, but seed is on general sale. Most people treat them as an annual, but it is in fact a perennial that is perfectly hardy, surviving through from one year to the next and forming a bigger clump all the time between picking.

Allium Proliferum - Tree Onions - Egyptian Walking Onions.
This is another Onion family oddity and is not really suitable to produce a good harvestable onion crop. However, it is a lot of fun to grow because bulbils are produced at the tops of the stems as they are in several members of the Allium family. The difference is that these bulbils are in fact edible as small Onions and are the plants main form of A-Sexual reproduction. That is to say that as the stems of the parent plant bend over, either at the end of the growing season, or due to wind, the bulbils will fall off and take root. The plant is said to be able to "walk," by this method and move away from its original planting location.

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