chives

we dug up a raised bed full of chives yesterday that had got out of hand there where many chive plants to replant in a new bed actually to many but they needed sorting as they where full of couch grass so we intend to pot them up and I wanted to ask should I cut back the chives to say about an inch high when I replant and add a little fertilizer to the mix?

You don't need to cut them back unless they are a bit wilty, although they may flower much later if you do decide toThey grow new leaves fairly quickly if you have to, and a little bit of something like Blood Fish & Bone would settle them in nicely

Chives do think they own the place, don't they? I love seing a whole bed edge of them, with bes buzzing over the pink flowers... juts lovely


(Oh, MoS beat me to it  )

We had them in a bed near the house and they self seeded all over the place. The trouble was we had a crazy pave patio and the seeds got into the gaps between slabs and they keep coming up every year even though I try to lever them out. I don't want to use weed killer on them, and to be honest, they're not that much trouble. Its quite nice, when you're having a sandwich on the patio, to lean over and pull a few to supplement your lunch!

From my pot growing days, I used to divide chive clumps every couple of years but found by year 4 they didnt have the flavour they once had, so after year 2 id divide and year 4 I let the plants flower and take the seeds to resow the following year, taste is much fuller and fresher in my opinion.

You can also eat garlic chives as a vegetable - I saw this on a Japanese cooking show.  You use tongs and blanch a bundle of them in boiling water for just a few seconds, refresh in cold water and squeeze dry.  They are quite a good garlic flavour and can be chopped to eat cold with a bit of soy sauce (or lemon if you prefer) or incorporated into other dishes.  They are good with anything cheese sauce based.

I have quite a lot as I have an edging row of them for a couple of fruit trees on the plot, so I cut bunches to eat because I can    The flowers attract a lot of insects.  They self seed like normal chives btw, so I cut the flower stalks off once they are over