Can you use the purple flowers on chives?

If you grow chives, you've likely seen the little pink or purple pompoms on your plants in late spring to early summer. These dainty flower heads aren't just food for the bees, however—chive blossoms are a delicious edible flower that you can eat, too.

Can you eat chives with purple flowers?

Yes! These purple flowers that grow on the chive plant are not only beautiful, they can be eaten too. Chive flowers have a light onion-y flavor. They can be eaten with eggs, as a garnish for soups, and thrown into salads.

Should you cut off the purple flowers on chives?

Cut the flower stalks off at the soil line to prevent the plant from forming seeds. This will encourage the plant to keep producing leaves, and you can utilize the flowers as garnish or tossed into salads. Chives can be used both fresh and dried but they lose quite a bit of their flavor when dried.

Can you use the flowers on chives?

Chinese chives (or garlic chives) produce edible white flowers with a garlic flavor that is stronger than the leaf itself. The stalks with unopened buds can be chopped and stir-fried, similar to asparagus. The opened flowers can be used as you would use regular chive blossoms.

Can you eat chives once flowered?

Should you really let your chives bolt? Well, there's really no harm in letting your chives bloom, but your harvest might get smaller if you do. Most plants will produce smaller leaves when there are flowers too. The flower stalk is usually also hard and you can't eat it.

Three Ways to use Chives and Chive Blossoms from the Garden

What can you do with chive buds?

The chive blossoms are most often used as a pretty garnish for salads and crudite platters but can be added to soups, sauces, and potato and egg dishes. Chive blossoms are also an ideal ingredient to flavor vinegar.

Should I cut back my chives after they flower?

Is it necessary to prune chives? Yes, I highly recommend dead-heading your chive blossoms once they've finished blooming and are starting to dry out.

Should you cut the flower heads off chives?

To keep chives productive, remove faded flowers or use the edible blooms when young to brighten salads. Chives are best used fresh. The leaves can also be frozen – chop them finely, pack into an ice-cube tray and top up with water, then freeze.

What does it mean when chives flower?

Blossoms: Clip the flower at the base of its stem. The stem is edible but is often tougher and “woodier” in taste than its leaves. Chives flower between May and June, and the blossoms are tasty in salads and in chive blossom vinegar.

How do you get seeds from chive flowers?

Are chive flowers healthy?

Health Benefits of Chives

Both the chive and the chive flowers add nutritional support to our bodies. Some evidence has been reported that chives will combat Salmonella and other bacteria. Yes chives act to rid the body of bacteria, and other icks like yeast and fungi. That's pretty amazing!

What part of the chives do you harvest?

Tip 1: When you harvest chive leaves, remove the entire length of the leaf. Don't just snip off the tip. Instead, snip off the whole leaf all the way down to the soil line. This encourages a flush of new growth and can be done many times throughout the growing season.

When should you cut back chives?

Additionally, the university recommends harvesting the chives three or four times during the plant's first year of growth. Thereafter, you should cut back plants monthly to keep them continuing to produce new growth.

Do chives come back every year?

Harvest the leaves and flowers as and when you need to. Chives are perennial so will come back year after year. They grow well in pots but are best suited to growing in the ground.

How do you cut chives to encourage growth?

Never pull the chive leaves out of the soil, this will kill them. Cut as close as you can to the ground, using sharp cutting tools. Leave around 2-4 inches (5-10 cm) from the base of the plant. Harvest in a scattered manner, leaving around 2″ (5 cm) in sections, otherwise your chives won't grow and have bare patches.

What do you do with too many chives?

Dry for future use – chives dehydrate easily and can be used throughout the year in soups and stews, eggs and other savory dishes. Just make sure to dry them slowly on low heat to keep them from turning brown. Join a produce exchange – bring your leftovers to a local produce exchange so others can enjoy them too.

How do you preserve chive flowers?

Wash freshly cut chive blossoms in cool water and dry them thoroughly. I use a salad spinner. Fill a mason jar 1/2 to 2/3 full with the chive blossoms. Top with white wine vinegar, seal, and store in a cool, dark spot for two weeks.

Can you eat the bulb of chives?

The bulbs of chives are edible as mild onions, although we don't really recommend this. The flowers are definitely edible and are great added to salads - their colour makes salads come alive. The flower heads are actually a mass of smaller flowers, which should be separated before adding to the salad.

Are chives poisonous to humans?

When taken by mouth: Chive is LIKELY SAFE for most people in food amounts. But there isn't enough reliable information to know if taking chive in the amounts found in medicine is safe or what the side effects might be. Taking too much chive can cause an upset stomach.

Do chives reseed themselves?

Weedy Self-seeders

For instance chives, garlic chives and borage all shed plenty of seeds, so seedlings will pop up reliably – too reliably! Feel free to let them flower to feed the insects, but to prevent them from self-seeding be sure to clip off the spent flowers or seedheads before the seeds ripen.

What does a chive seed look like?

Chive seeds are black, and slightly larger than sesame seeds. They are a half moon shape – where one side is rounded, and the other is flat (kind of like a lemon wedge). They are also very hard, almost like tiny rocks.

How do chives multiply?

Chives sprout from bulbs beneath the soil. Over time, the bulb splits and forms new bulbs, eventually creating a larger clump of chives. The plant's foliage dies back each fall, and the bulbs beneath the soil go dormant. Once warmer weather arrives in spring, the bulbs begin sending up new green spiky foliage.

What Colour flowers do chives have?

Common chives consist of clumps of small, slender bulbs that produce thin, tubular, blue-green leaves reaching 10-15 inches in height. The edible, flavorful flowers may be white, pink, purple, or red, depending on variety.