Chives

Allium schoenoprasum

Amaryllidaceae

The mildest kitchen onion — a perennial snip for eggs, and a gentler cousin of garlic’s folklore.

Everyday culinary allium. Distinct from wild onion lookalikes you cannot name.

Parts used: Leaf · Flower
Traditional notes: Kitchen snip · After a heavy breakfast · Mild circulatory folklore
Grow · USDA 6b: Perennial clump, USDA 3–9 Division is faster than seed. Seed in spring. In work: Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct
Harvest: Cut 2 inches above the crown. Never scalp the clump.

Divide every three years or the center dies out.
A pot by the kitchen door is the whole crop.
Let a few pompoms bloom — bees, and a milder garnish.

Safety

Allium allergy

Companions

Plant with Apple, Carrot, Comfrey, Dog rose, Garden sage, Garlic.

Lore

The smallest onion of the temperate world, already in Chinese pots 4,000 years back. The Latin schoenoprasum is ‘rush-leek.’ The purple pompoms are edible, which the bees also know.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.