I wanted to share this bite of “harvest trivia” on chives – garlic and regular.
During HerbFest, I have noticed that when I talk about “cutting chives”, there are many people who are surprised to learn that chives should not be cut from the top but from the base of the plant.
Let’s say you are making a baked potato and you only need a little chives so you don’t want to cut the entire stem so you cut off the top harvesting only what you are going to use. What you just did was kill the stem from where you cut down to the ground, which is wasteful and not good for the plant either.
This is what you should do …
- Cut as many stems as you need from the base.
- Now cut off the tops of the harvested stems the amount you need tonight
- Cut them up, but don’t chop the rest of the chives stem or release the oils which is what you are looking for for flavor and fragrance.
- Take the remaining stems and put them in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer.
- The next time you need chives, remove the stalks from the freezer and chop, releasing the oil you had saved on the stalk by not cutting it in the original harvest.
This process also encourages the chives to broaden their base and you get more chives year after year.
It should also be remembered that chives flowers are edible flowers, but be careful to eat garlic chives flower with hesitation, as it has more garlic than the garlic itself.