How to Harvest Garlic Chives: Cutting to the Base Three or Four Times a Season

Cut the whole clump, do not pick leaves

The instinct is to pull off a few outer leaves when you need them, the way you would with parsley. With garlic chives that is the wrong method. Leaves pulled individually tear at the base, leaving a ragged stub that browns and rots back into the crown, and the clump ends up a mess of half-length regrowth of every possible age.

Take the whole clump instead. Gather the leaves in one hand, and with sharp scissors or a knife cut straight across about an inch (2 to 3 cm) above the soil. You get a clean, uniform bundle of full-length leaves, and the clump regrows evenly from the crown as a single flush. That evenness is what lets you plan the next cut.

Cutting lower than an inch damages the growing points sitting just at soil level and slows the recovery badly. Cutting much higher leaves stumps of old leaf that never lengthen again and simply yellow among the new growth.

Sharpen the blade. A blunt cut crushes the leaf bases, and crushed tissue at soil level is the entry point for the crown rots that finish off older clumps.

The first cut of the year, and how many follow

Take the first cut of the season when the leaves reach eight to ten inches (20 to 25 cm), which is usually mid to late spring. This first flush is the best of the year: the leaves are broad, tender and at their sweetest before the summer heat sharpens the flavor.

After each cut the clump takes about three weeks to reach cutting height again in warm weather, longer in cool. A mature clump in good soil supports three or four cuts across the season. Push it to five or six and you will get the leaves, but the crown enters winter depleted and the following spring's flush is visibly poorer.

Growth slows in the hottest part of summer and the leaves toughen. Many gardeners take two cuts in spring and early summer, let the plant run to flower, then take a final autumn cut once the weather cools and the leaves come tender again.

Harvesting the flower buds

Garlic chives carry flat-topped umbels of small white star-shaped flowers on stiff round stalks in late summer, and those stalks are a crop in their own right. Cut them while the bud cluster is still tight and papery-sheathed, before any flower has opened, and the whole stem is tender enough to eat. At that stage it is crisp, mildly garlicky and one of the best things the plant produces.

Once the flowers open the stalk turns woody within a few days and is no longer worth cutting for the kitchen. Open flowers are still edible as a garnish, sweet and mild, and they are heavily worked by bees. Cutting the stems young serves the plant as well: every bud you remove is seed the plant does not set.

Snap or cut the flower stalk right down at the base, not partway up. A cut halfway leaves a hollow stub that fills with water and rots.

1. Check the clump twice a week in late summer Flower stalks rise fast and the window between a tight bud and an open flower is only a few days in warm weather. Twice-weekly checking catches nearly all of them at the right stage.
2. Cut at the base while the sheath is intact Take stems where the bud is still wrapped in its papery sheath and the stalk snaps cleanly when bent. If it bends rather than snaps, it is already too woody.
3. Leave a few to open if you want the flowers Keep a small number for the bees and the look of them, but plan to cut those before the petals brown, or you will be pulling seedlings out of the whole bed next spring.

The flavor of the flower stalk is milder and sweeter than the leaf. Treat it as a vegetable in its own right rather than as a herb, cut into short lengths and cooked briefly.

Cutting late in the season

Stop cutting about four to six weeks before your first hard frost. The clump needs that time to build a final flush of leaf and move the reserves back down into the crown for winter. A clump cut bare a week before frost goes into dormancy with nothing stored and comes back thin, or in a hard winter does not come back at all.

Once the foliage has been blackened by frost, cut the dead material away and clear it off the bed. Leaving a mat of collapsed frosted leaves over the crown holds moisture against it all winter and is one of the few ways a hardy plant like this gets killed.

Using and keeping the cut leaves

Garlic chives lose flavor and texture faster than most herbs once cut, so plan the cut around when you will use it rather than harvesting speculatively. Cut in the cool of early morning, when the leaves are full of water and at their crispest. Leaves cut in the afternoon heat go limp within the hour.

In the fridge, wrapped loosely in a damp cloth or standing in a jar with an inch of water, a bundle keeps for about a week. They freeze acceptably: chop, spread on a tray to freeze loose, then bag. Frozen leaves lose their crunch entirely and are only worth using in cooked dishes. Drying is not worth doing at all, as the flavor disappears almost completely.

Unlike common chives, garlic chives hold their flavor under heat, which is why they belong in stir fries, dumpling fillings and egg dishes rather than being scattered raw at the end.

Write down each cut date and the number of days until the clump was ready again. When that interval stretches from three weeks to five, the clump is telling you it is congested and due for division.