| Open Flowers of the Garlic Chive (Allium tuberosum) herb |
The flowers smell of honey. It is hard to describe exactly how they taste. For me, it happens in two stages: firstly, there is an intense release of sweetness, something you did not expect, and secondly, the familiar onion/garlic (i.e., sulfuric) taste hits you but in a very subtle way. There is also the textural component, a small pop when you chew on the flower. The would-be seeds are now a tasty snack as you walk past the flowers that smell like honey.
Garlic chives came into my life in a funny way, but it has remained in my life for something like 10 years by now. Culinarily, it has helped me introduce more flavors, garden-wise, it was one of the first crops I successfully grew from seeds I harvested, and spiritually, it has helped me slow down to smell its flowers, to taste them and to enjoy the subtle tastes the whole plant imparts into my food. In the following post, I want to introduce you to this wonderful herb, how to incorporate it into your diet, and some beneficial aspects to your health and spirit. I also reminisce about how it entered my life and how it got to occupy space in my garden. I hope you find some value in the post, and if you can, help you grow some of it yourself! You will never experience such a nice-tasting flower, but that might be my biased opinion.
| Characteristic flat leaves of garlic chives |
Garlic chives fall under the onion family. Not fully garlic, not fully chives, it is a kind of cross between the two. But thinking about it in that sense is already misleading. The correct way to think about it, in my opinion, is to think about it as a mild onion and mild garlic flavor. The white and more root area has the distinct onion flavor, whereas the green top part has that subtle garlic flavor they are renowned for. This is not, in my opinion, a cooking herb. The flavor, and I would guess all the health benefits, gets lost in the cooking process. To me, it is a quintessential salad herb to add that subtle garlic and onion flavor without the overpowering flavors of both mentioned. But, I think, this comes at some cost though: the health benefits of the garlic chive is not that potent as some other alliums. If I, for example, read this article correctly, the overall antioxidant score of garlic chives is some of the lowest of all alliums. (Funny enough, garlic is also very low! Who would have guessed that.)
| Flowering garlic chives |
In any case, the plant or herb is actually really beautiful. It does not grow that tall, and it grows back so quickly after you harvested from it. It grows so easily from seed, and the flowers are really beautiful. The smell, as already mentioned, coming from them is that of honey. It is very funny, I grew onions earlier and I smelled the flowers of the onion and it smelled, well, of onion! But the smell of these flowers is such a sweet and strong honey scent. If you have the opportunity to smell them, you will be pleasantly surprised. They grow a type of bulb but I have not seen people really use it. There is some conflicting information out there, one group saying it is edible, the other saying it is not. To me personally, I use it for the green part. It always grows back in less than two weeks, so why use the bulb unless you have a very specific reason?
| Flat leaves of garlic chives |
Sometimes I find it troublesome to google the "Health benefits of herb xyz". Various studies and news outlets promote the use of herbs for xyz reasons. Traditional medicine, even though on a comeback, can be misused by those who want to write a rather clickbait article or to claim that a single herb can cure everything. I like to follow two ideals in my herbalist journey: (i) prevention is better than cure, and (ii) variety is the spice of life. (Note: This is an overgeneralization and by no means either advice or prescriptive in any sense.) That is, I like to add as many sources of herbs in my daily diet as to in some way promote overall health. I am still young and I lead a consciously healthy lifestyle, so in this sense, I have never really had the need to use "medicine" (natural or unnatural). I want to believe that this is due to all the herbs I eat throughout the day!
That said, garlic chives are extremely healthy. I think most allium herbs are, due to amongst other reasons, the sulfuric component to them. For example, Plants for a Future states that:
The whole plant is antibacterial, cardiac, depurative, digestive, stimulant, stomachic and tonic.
Medical News Today also states the Vitamin K and Folate content of garlic chives. Directly or indirectly, this can have extremely good health benefits, as I know most western-style diets lack Vit. K.
But this brings me to the spiritual element, or let us say the mental aspect. Thinking about herbs in this reductionist aspect can drive some people to overthink. I know that I went into some rabbit holes a couple of years ago. Our bodies are smart, they know how to "heal" themselves, but for this, we need to feed it the correct food. (Or so I believe.) It becomes detrimental then for us to give our bodies the correct "fuel" so that they can do what it does best. If we load it with "junk food" can we really hope for the best?
The flowers open relatively quickly. In less than a week they went from not being there, to opening this morning. It released the familiar honey scents and I just love being around these flowers. I usually grew them in front of the kitchen door, so every time I walked past them that sweet honey scent or smell wafted all around me and in the kitchen.
| Garlic chive flowerhead begining |
| Garlic chive flowerhead opening |
| Garlic chive flowerhead opened |
Also as mentioned, the flavor is something unique. Extremely sweet, with a hint of onion and garlic, these flowers make for beautiful decorations in your salad. The loss of potential seeds is a problem. If you grow these flowers for seed, obviously don't pick them. But if you have stored away a lot of previously harvested seeds, or if you grow two separate batches, then pick the flowers for your salad! I had some yellow wild rocket flowers close by and picked some as a snack while I photographed them.
| Wild rocket and Garlic chive flowers |
Obviously, the main component of your salad will be the green leaves. Use them liberally as they are mild in flavor, and they grow abundantly! What I also love to do is to use them in condiments. For example, I make a mayonnaise-based sauce in which I add dried and ground sumac, ground mustard seeds, and chopped garlic chives. Rather than the sometimes overpowering garlic taste of garlic-mayo, the garlic chives give a subtle garlic taste and compliments rather than overpower the sauce (if you do not want the overpowering garlic taste though!).
| Garlic chive seedling with seed still stuck |
If you did not eat all the flowers, and you want to grow more, it cannot be simpler. Wait until the seeds dry out and open up. Be careful, the wind can blow them away! But if you manage to successfully harvest the seeds, sow them and water them regularly. They like moist ground, especially in warm areas like South Africa. They will grow big enough for harvesting in about three to four weeks, again depending on the weather. But you can also dig them up, divide them and plant them further apart to encourage new growth. I have more success with sowing seeds, but I have done the second method as well. You do not always have extra seeds, because you ate them before they turned into seeds. But alas, they grow so easily.
| Some more seedlings |
I received six bulbs from one of my aunts. She did not want them or something like that, but I also did not know much. I planted them, remembered the name she gave me, and here I am today growing them year-round for my daily salads. I truly have fallen in love with the flowers, their honey scent, and their sweet taste. I love to add the leaves and flowers to salads, as it gives it a nice backbone flavor of onion and garlic without overpowering the salad.
It is funny sometimes that small gestures like my aunt giving me them because she does not want them can change your life in such meaningful ways.
In any case, all of the photographs are my own, taken with the old Nikon D300 and 50mm lens. All the ideas and musings are my own, albeit "high" on honey-scented- and sweet-tasting flowers. Credit is also given to authors' work I used. I hope you learned something new, and that you will now want to grow your garlic chives! The world is filled with so many nice herbs, just grow them! The shops will not stock them because of their capitalist ideals. Broaden your horizon beyond the arbitrary restrictions shops have placed in your mind. Stay safe, do your own research, and have a happy herbalist journey!
