Chives and meadow garlic together in my herb garden in 2010. |
Chives: (Allium schoenoprasum) a classic herb that produces edible leaves, bulbs, and flowers. A perennial plant, chives is widespread in nature across much of Eurasia and North America. It is the only species of Allium native to both the New and the Old Worlds.
Chives are a commonly used herb and vegetable with a variety of culinary uses, but mostly for garnish, because with their hollow stems they fall apart during cooking. They are also used to repel insects, but chives are not native to Florida.
Meadow Garlic: (Allium canadense) a rarely used perennial herb native to most of eastern North America. It also produces edible leaves, bulbs, and flowers. It's leaves are solid which means that this plant does withstand cooking. As a crop, it has a few characteristics that are a bit different. It dies back for the summer, so leaves are not available for harvesting then, but you could dig the bulbs to use if you know where they are. They sprout again from their bulbs in mid fall, bloom in the spring, and die back after blooming. They produce several bulblets in each flower head, which readily grow where they fall, so this crop spreads rapidly once it's established.
When they are available from late fall through to spring, I use the leaves for both salads and cooking in soups, omelets, stir frys and more. Because the leaves are solid they are more useful in the kitchen than the chives. The taste is similar to, but not the same as chives or garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) and it has a bit of spicyness or heat. All three have an onion overtone, and of the three, chives is the most bland. The meadow garlic flowers also have more flavor than the chives flowers.
Onion Family
There has been some controversy over what family the onions should be placed. The Atlas of Florida Plants, my go-to resource on families and nativeness, put them in Alliaceae, basically their own family. Kew Gardens in England and others place them in Amaryllidaceae, the Amaryllus family. USDA and others place them in Liliaceae, the lily family. Plants are classified by their flowers and fruits and if you look at the flowers or in this case the florets of the flower head, they have the characteristic of 3 petals and 3 sepals, which on other plants usually subtend or are below the petals. In this case and in lilies and ammaryllus flowers, the 3 petals and the 3 sepals look the same, so it looks like there are 6 equal petals, but they are called tepals. And the family feud here makes no difference to us in using these plants in our gardens and in our recipes.
Allium, the genus is divided into the "onions", which have hollow leaves and the "garlics", which have solid leaves. So these two herb fall on opposites sides of the genus. See below for links to other articles for crops in this family.
Both of these plants reproduce asexually by the formation of new bulbs under the soil, but the meadow garlic also produces bulblets in each flower head. These bulblets often sprout while still attached to the mother plant. The initial leaf is often twisted, which gives the flower heads a wild-haired look, but having that leaf means that the little bulb has a much better chance of becoming established.
My history with these herbs
Other articles on crops in the onion family:
- Growing onions and garlic in North Florida
- Leeks: Growing and using this garlic relative
- A failed onion crop
- Garlic chives, a bountiful evergreen crop
- Short-day onions & more...
So I hope you will try growing these herbs and others to spice up your meals.
Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt
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