Chives and meadow garlic: two members of the onion family

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. 

Growing onions and garlic in North Florida

Onion planting day: November 26

Onions and garlics

Both onions and garlics are in the genus Allium, which contains several crops that are divided into two groups:
1) Onions, which have hollow leaves and 
2) Garlics, which have flat, solid leaves. (*See note below on the family.)

Onions (Allium cepa) are treated as a long-season annual in Florida. Botanically, they are biennials, where in a natural habitat, they would grow leaves and form a bulb the first year, go into dormancy, and the second year they would use the stored energy in the bulb to form flowers, which are borne on a specialized stem called a scape. We interrupt this cycle by harvesting as the plant goes dormant and when the bulb is at its maximum size.