When to sow chives?
- Botanical name
- Allium schoenoprasum
- Family
- Amaryllidaceae
Chives are sown from March to April. They are harvested from April to October. They are cut back from June to July.
Chives are perennial plants. The edible parts are the leaves and flowers.
Chives are set out in clumps, in a herb bed or as an edging to a bed. The leaves are cut in the first year after planting and taken as needed, just above the base of the clump.
A well rooted clump in a bed takes drought and is watered only in a longer dry spell. A newly set clump and a clump in a pot are watered regularly through their first summer. The soil has to carry water away well.
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Chives through the year
- sowing
- harvest
- cutting back
In short
Growing conditions
The leaves and flowers are listed as edible and as toxic at once. The toxicity is to cats and dogs, not to people.
Are chives toxic to cats and dogs?
Yes. Toxic to cats and dogs, toxic parts: roots, bulbs, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds.
Pests and diseases
Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.
- Signs
- Growth is stunted and the leaves yellow and die. Pulled up, the underground part is coated in a white to grey mould or crust holding thousands of tiny black fruiting bodies.
- Prevention
- Plant only stock confirmed healthy. Pull out infected plants and take them away, not onto the compost. The fruiting bodies stay in the soil for years, so do not plant alliums in an infected bed for four to five years. Rotation on its own does not wipe the disease out.
- What to do
- For the home garden there is no product. The measure is the bed: remove the infected plants, work compost into the soil and leave a long break without alliums.
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Log the task and set a reminder for the next one. Every plant keeps its own history, so there is nothing to guess at.
Related plants
The plants below are in the same botanical family (Amaryllidaceae).
Sources about the plant: ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants, CliniTox Pflanzengifte, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 26 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database, University of Maryland Extension.