Gadenin日本語Get the appCut, do not pull
The whole value of this crop is that it regrows. Pulling a plant out gives you one bunch and ends it; cutting the tops gives you a bunch now and another in two or three weeks from the same clump, repeatedly through autumn, winter and spring. Treat every clump as a permanent fixture and take only leaves from it.
Cut with scissors or a sharp knife, one inch (2.5 cm) above the soil. That leaves the growing point and a short collar of leaf base intact, and new leaf pushes from it almost immediately. Cutting flush with the soil takes the growing point with it and that shoot never comes back, though its neighbors in the clump will.
| Cutting height | Result | Time to next cut |
|---|---|---|
| One inch (2.5 cm) above soil | Clean regrowth from every shoot | Two to three weeks in mild weather |
| Flush with the soil | Cut shoots do not return; clump thins | Four weeks or more, from surviving shoots only |
| Halfway up the leaf | Ragged brown tips on every stub | Fast but the harvest looks poor |
| Whole clump lifted | One harvest, plant finished | Not applicable |
Know when the tops are worth cutting
The tops are ready when they stand eight to ten inches (20 to 25 cm) tall and feel firm and hollow rather than soft. Below about six inches (15 cm) there is barely anything worth taking, and cutting that early costs the plant more than it gives you. Above about fourteen inches (35 cm) the older outer leaves start to flop and yellow at the tip, so aim to cut before that.
In cool, bright conditions a clump goes from cut to cuttable in two to three weeks. As temperatures rise towards summer the interval shortens at first and then the quality drops away as the plant prepares for dormancy. Late-spring growth is often the thickest and best of the whole year, so make the most of it.
- Take a third of the clump at a time Rather than shearing the whole clump, cut a third of the shoots and leave the rest standing. The remaining leaves keep feeding the bulbs, so regrowth on the cut portion is faster and the clump never runs down.
- Rotate around the bed Work through the row clump by clump so each one gets three or four weeks between cuts. With six clumps in rotation you can cut something every week without pushing any single plant.
- Cut in the morning Tops cut in the cool of the morning are turgid and keep far better than the same leaves cut in afternoon heat, which go limp within an hour.
- Use a clean blade Wipe the scissors between clumps if any plant shows disease. Cut surfaces on alliums are an easy entry point, and moving spores clump to clump on a blade is a real risk with rust and downy mildew.
Green tops do not store well. They keep three or four days upright in a jar of water in a cool place, or about a week wrapped loosely in the refrigerator. Cut what you need rather than harvesting ahead.
Stop cutting when the plant tells you to
Two signals mean stop. The first is late spring approaching summer, when the tops begin to yellow from the tip and the regrowth after a cut comes back thin and pale. That is dormancy starting, and the plant is moving reserves down into the bulbs. Cutting through that period strips the reserves it needs to survive the dry months, and you will lift undersized, soft bulbs that store badly.
The second is a clump that has simply been overworked. If regrowth after a cut is noticeably thinner than the cut before, and the shoots come up narrow and light green, give that clump six weeks completely untouched and a feed. It recovers, but only if you leave it alone.
The bulbs are a harvest too
When you lift and split clumps in summer, you get far more bulbs than you need to replant. A clump of eight shoots yields eight bulbs and you may only want three of them back in the ground. The surplus is food, with a flavor between a shallot and a spring onion, and it can be used fresh or dried down and kept.
Sort as you lift. Keep the largest, firmest, best-shaped bulbs for replanting, because bulb size at planting drives how many offsets you get next season. Eat the small ones, the misshapen ones and anything with a soft spot, and eat them promptly rather than trying to store them.
Record the date of each cut and roughly how much you took per clump. Within one season those notes give you your own true regrowth interval and show exactly which clumps are carrying the row and which are running down.