How to Grow Garlic Chives: A Detailed Guide to Planting Time and Methods

Garlic chives are one of the most ordinary vegetables in our daily lives. They can be stir-fried, boiled, deep-fried or roasted, and taste excellent in every way. Garlic chives also have certain medicinal value, mainly for treating some common conditions of kidney deficiency and general weakness. Many people love eating them, and they are also very easy to grow. Below, Qinnong Network tells you how to grow garlic chives and when to plant them.

Planting Time

The planting time for garlic chives is actually very broad. Basically, they can be planted in spring, autumn and winter, and they can also be planted in summer, though if the temperature is too high, the survival rate and the yield and quality of growth are not particularly good. The most suitable seasons for planting are spring and autumn. In these two seasons, garlic chives grow most vigorously, coming up large and tender with very good quality.

Planting Methods

1. Choosing the Site

Site selection is not particularly important for growing garlic chives, as they have extremely strong adaptability to soil. What matters is which plot of land allows them to grow better, so it is best to choose an area close to a water source. Next, the soil's water-retention capacity and fertility should both be quite good. This way, the garlic chives that grow will have much stronger reproductive capacity, and their color will look much better, making them very appetizing to look at.

2. Planting

There are two ways to plant garlic chives: they can reproduce sexually, and they can also reproduce asexually. Sexual reproduction means sowing the seeds in rows in a prepared field to raise seedlings, but this method is rarely used in our daily lives. What we most commonly use is transplanting, which is asexual reproduction: planting purchased garlic chive seedlings at a certain spacing, usually placing three seedlings in each hole.

3. Density

Garlic chives have very strong reproductive capacity. Basically, about a week after planting and establishment, you will see a few new garlic chive seedlings emerge around a hole that originally had only three seedlings. They will keep multiplying, and if not harvested, they will eventually fill the entire field densely, but they will all grow rather thin and not sturdy. So the planting density is generally 15 to 20 cm between plants and 25 to 30 cm between rows.

4. Fertilizing

If you want garlic chives to grow quickly and tenderly, then fertilizing is essential, but if the fertilizing method is incorrect, it can also cause the garlic chives to become tough and completely inedible. The growth process of garlic chives is a continuous one, so first of all, when applying base fertilizer, we must apply enough. Second, about a week after planting and establishment, we can mix urea with water and pour it over the garlic chives to promote the growth of the seedlings. Third, after each harvest, we should apply additional fertilizer according to the growth of the garlic chives and the fertility of the field soil. The fertilizer used can be livestock manure, human excrement and urine, or urea.

5. Disease Prevention

After planting garlic chives, we need to spray pesticide on them regularly. Garlic chives generally only suffer from some leaf-eating insects, or from malnutrition and premature aging caused by insufficient water or nutrients in the field. So we should observe the growth of the garlic chives at all times. As long as we are careful enough, there will basically be no pest or disease problems. If they do appear, we must spray pesticide promptly for control. The most critical point is that no pesticide may be sprayed within 15 days before harvest, as this will affect quality.

6. Harvesting

In the first two years after planting, the yield of garlic chives will not be very high. Generally starting from the fourth year, the yield begins to increase steadily, and only after the tenth year does it gradually decline. So in order to maintain good yields, we transplant them after each harvest, which allows production to keep increasing continuously. When harvesting, note that it is best to do so at five or six in the morning, as garlic chives harvested at this time are the freshest. Also note that each harvest should be cut slightly higher than the previous stubble, so that they will grow normally.