The chives I have in a container out back are about to start blooming. I love chive flowers and enjoy sprinkling them on soup or on top of a salad to add a bit of color.
Tagged With: Onion
Allium christophii
I planted six of these Allium christophii last fall and they are just starting to bloom, a little late but that’s normal for the first year after planting. It will shortly but a huge ball of these cool, six pointed stars.
Allium caeruleum
This is a sweet little blue allium. I think I’ll get a few more of these this fall.
Honey Bee on Wild Onion
I’ll end the first six months of Project 365 with a honey bee (Apis mellifera), busily visiting the flowers on a wild onion in the empty lot next to my office.
Egyptian Walking Onion
I planted a few of these years ago at our old house, after having taken a few bulblets from the top of some growing in a garden we visited. A few years ago I decided to get rid of them, but that’s easier said than done. This one is growing in the grass outside the fenced herb garden that I made a while back. I think we need to be a bit more ruthless in pulling them up. They are interesting, though, and if we had a lot of space, I’d have a bunch. The stems, which are really tubular leaves, have flower clusters at the top. Then bulblets form and sometimes there are flower clusters growing from those bulblets. When the top becomes heavy from the size of the bulblets, the whole plant falls on its side, those bulblets take root and new plants spring up. It’s that spreading action that gives rise to the “walking” part of their name. Anyway, if you’d like some, feel free to ask and I’ll give you a few bulblets and you can start your own colony.
Chives
The chives (Allium schoenoprasum) are blooming. These are one of the easiest herbs to grow and we have them both in containers on our back patio and in the ground in our herb garden. We have to keep the oregano from suffocating them, but they have managed to survive so far. They bloom this time every year and I like to pick some of the flowers to sprinkle onto food as a seasoning. They add a subtle oniony flavour without being overpowering. Of course, the tubular chive leaves can be used pretty much any time, but I think the flowers are special, because they add color as well as flavour.
Allium moly (Golden Garlic)
I really should plant more of this as well as other ornamental onions. This is Allium moly, often called golden garlic, and it’s a lovely little bulb, blooming later than many of the spring bulbs. Its flowers are smaller than daffodils but it makes up for that by being one of the few things in bloom right now. In theory it spreads and needs to be controlled when growing in ideal conditions. Clearly that’s not what it has here, but it seems happy enough. Another Allium that I’ve had but don’t now is Allium caeruleum, which has pale blue flowers. I think I’ll order some of that, too, this fall, along with a bunch more deffodils.