Garlic and Garlic Chives for G

I love growing garlic chives in the garden, more for the pretty white flowers than the garlic flavoured chives. I also planted some garlic for the first time last Fall.

Towards the end of September 2015 I purchased some garlic from the local garden center. We had this patch of ground where the old bottle tree used to grow and once it fell down I didn’t know what to do with this little square garden. It was a good patch of soil, edged in 2×4’s and just waiting for something else to grow there. It was decided to plant some garlic there and see how it grew. I’ve never grown garlic before, but a daughter always grows lots of it and said it was easy.

It was planted September 24, 2015 and by November 4, 2015 it had sprouted, which I was told was normal.

Since then to now it has gone through being covered in snow to fully visible, back to snow, back to visible.

After the latest snow storm last week, when we had 22.4 cm of snow in one day, the only thing visible is the wood on one side of this garden area.

I’ll continue to take photos of the progress of the garlic and hope that I will get a small crop of it later in the year.

Garlic chives are a perennial plant that will rapidly self seed. I love the pretty white flowers that appear towards the end of the summer.

The blooms attract lots of critters … from ladybugs, to moths, to wasps and more.

critters on the garlic chive blooms at craftygardener.ca

Garlic chives or Allium tuberosum, are a perennial bulbous plant, and have flat stems with a flower spike growing taller than the plant. It has the distinctive smell of garlic when touched or cut. The bulb, or part in the ground, is not edible, but it is the leaves that you chop and add to recipes.

The clumps grow quite big and after the blooms are finished the seeds appear. These are numerous and if you don’t want lots of garlic chive plants popping up the following year be sure to snip the seed heads off before they drop.