What it is
Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum) is in the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis) family. Flat-leaved chives with a true garlic flavor, white edible flowers, and the toughness to divide into a lifetime supply.
How to grow it
It wants full sun to part shade, water it low to moderate, and give it average, well-drained soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0–7.0. Space plants about 8 in apart. Expect roughly Cut greens within weeks. Hardy perennial.
How it's used
Garlic Chives is used: greens, flowers.
🔎 How to identify it
- Flat, grass-like leaves (not hollow)
- White star flowers in late summer
- Mild garlic scent when crushed
Edibility
How to grow & propagate garlic chives
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate garlic chives
The onion family is grown three ways: from seed, from little bulbs called sets, or — for garlic and shallots — by breaking apart a bulb and planting the individual cloves. Garlic and perennial onions are the easiest of all: plant a clove in fall, harvest a whole head the next summer, and save your biggest heads to replant. You never have to buy it again.
Growing garlic chives in Texas
Give it full sun to part shade and average, well-drained soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Because it's a perennial, the work is mostly up front. Get it sited and established and it comes back on its own year after year — one of the best returns on effort in the whole garden.
Once it's rooted in, this is a low-water plant — overwatering does more harm than drought here. Water deeply to establish, then back off and let it prove how tough it is.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly cut greens within weeks before you're harvesting. Pick herbs in the morning after the dew dries for the strongest oils, and harvest little and often — regular cutting keeps a herb bushy and stops it bolting. The part you're after: leaves, flowers.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.