How to Grow Chinese Chives from Seed (Garlic Chives, Allium tuberosum)

Every serious kitchen garden in China, Japan and Korea keeps a patch of jiu cai — Chinese chives — and once you have grown them you will understand why. The flat, strap-like leaves carry a mild, sweet garlic flavour that ordinary chives cannot offer, the late-summer clouds of starry white flowers are edible and adored by bees, and the plant itself is a hardy perennial that returns fatter and more productive every spring for a decade or more. Known equally as garlic chives, Allium tuberosum is one of the easiest herbs to raise from seed — one packet sown this summer becomes a permanent, cut-and-come-again edging for your beds. Here is the complete guide: when to sow, how to turn grassy seedlings into fat clumps, and how to harvest leaves, buds and flowers.

• Botanical name Allium tuberosum — hardy perennial herb
• Sow March–August, 15–20 °C
• Harvest leaves from year two; flowers August–September
• Position full sun to light shade, fertile, well-drained soil

What exactly are Chinese chives?

Chinese chives and garlic chives are the same plant: Allium tuberosum, a clump-forming perennial from the onion family that grows 30–50 cm tall. Where common chives make thin, hollow tubes, Chinese chives make flat, solid blades — more like slender grass — and where common chives taste of onion, these taste unmistakably of garlic, but softer and sweeter, with none of the bite of the raw clove. In late August the clumps send up stiff stems topped with umbels of white, star-shaped flowers that smell faintly of honey and pull in bees and hoverflies by the dozen. In Asian kitchens the plant is treated as a vegetable as much as a herb: whole bunches are folded into dumplings, flash-fried with eggs or tossed through noodles. It is also quietly ornamental — a tidy, grassy edging plant that flowers when most of the herb garden is winding down. If raising herbs from seed is new to you, our beginner's guide to growing herbs from seed covers the groundwork.

When to sow Chinese chives

The sowing window runs from March to August. Spring sowings, made under cover from March or direct from April, establish fastest and give you a light picking by autumn. But a midsummer sowing — July or August — pays off just as well with a perennial like this: seedlings started now build roots through autumn, sit quietly over winter and romp away in spring, giving their first proper harvest a season earlier than a next-year sowing would. You will find them in our sow-in-July collection for good reason.

One rule matters more with alliums than with almost any other herb: use fresh seed. Onion-family seed is naturally short-lived and germination drops sharply after a year or two, so buy a fresh packet rather than gambling on the half-used one from three summers ago, and store it cool and dry.

How to sow Chinese chives, step by step

The seed is small, black and angular, and it behaves like all allium seed: sow it about 1 cm deep, keep it evenly moist, and be patient — germination takes 10–21 days and the seedlings spend their first weeks looking like wisps of grass. The trick that makes everything easier is to sow in pinches and keep the seedlings together as little clumps, exactly as you would with spring onions.

1. Fill modules or a tray Use fresh, peat-free seed compost, firm gently and water before sowing so the surface is evenly moist.
2. Sow in pinches Drop 6–8 seeds per module and cover with about 1 cm of compost or vermiculite — unlike some flower seeds, allium seed germinates happily in the dark.
3. Keep warm and moist 15–20 °C is ideal. Expect grassy loops in 10–21 days — the fundamentals are in our germination guide.
4. Grow on as clumps Do not prick out individual seedlings — grow each pinch on as one clump, and pot on when roots fill the module.
5. Plant out After hardening off, set clumps 20–25 cm apart in full sun or light shade, and keep them watered through their first summer.

Chinese chives or common chives?

Grow both — they are different plants for different jobs, and their seasons barely overlap:

Caring for your plants

Chinese chives ask for very little. Give them a fertile, well-drained spot in full sun or light shade and water regularly in their first year — our watering guide covers how to do this efficiently — and after that the deep, slightly tuberous roots make established clumps remarkably drought-tolerant. A handful of compost around the clumps each spring is all the feeding they need. The leaves die back with the first hard frosts and the plant disappears completely over winter; this is normal, not a loss — it will be back, wider than before, in March. Every three to four years, lift and split congested clumps in spring and replant the divisions. Pests largely ignore the garlic-scented foliage, and like other alliums the plants make useful neighbours in a companion planting scheme. One habit worth building: cut spent flower stems before the seed ripens, because Chinese chives self-seed with real enthusiasm — one plant becomes a colony within a couple of years if you let it. Prefer to grow it chemical-free from the start? It is part of our organic herbs range too.

Harvesting: leaves, buds and flowers

Restraint in year one, abundance ever after. Take only a light picking in the first season and let the clumps build strength; from the second year, cut whole clumps back to 2–3 cm above the soil and they will regrow three or four times between spring and autumn. The unopened flower buds on their stems are a delicacy in their own right — sold in Chinese markets as flowering chives, and superb flash-fried whole. Open flowers can be scattered over salads like other edible flowers. In the kitchen, treat Chinese chives gently: the garlic flavour fades with long cooking, so add them in the final minute of a stir-fry or fold them raw into dumpling fillings. Anything you cannot use fresh is best chopped and frozen — and for the full harvesting playbook, including flowering stems and home-blanched yellow chives, see our dedicated guide to harvesting Chinese chives.

Common Chinese chive mistakes

• Sowing old seed — allium seed loses viability fast. A fresh packet germinates at double the rate of a two-year-old one.
• Harvesting hard in year one — cutting a young clump to the ground repeatedly stunts it for years. Pick lightly, then go all in from year two.
• Pricking out single seedlings — sow in pinches and plant as clumps; lone seedlings sulk and take far longer to bulk up.
• Letting seedheads ripen — charming flowers, prolific self-seeder. Deadhead unless you want a carpet of chive grass.
• Cooking them to death — long simmering erases the garlic note. Add at the end, or eat them raw.

Frequently asked questions

Do Chinese chives come back every year?
Yes — Allium tuberosum is a fully hardy perennial. The leaves die back in winter and regrow from the roots each spring, and a well-sited clump keeps producing for ten years or more, especially if divided every few years.

Are Chinese chives and garlic chives the same thing?
Yes. Chinese chives, garlic chives, Chinese leek and jiu cai are all names for the same species, Allium tuberosum. The names are used interchangeably on seed packets.

Can I grow Chinese chives in pots?
Very well. Choose a pot at least 20 cm deep, use rich compost, water regularly and split the clump when it fills the container. A pot by the kitchen door gets harvested far more often than a plant at the end of the garden.

Why are my Chinese chives so thin and grassy?
Almost certainly age, not failure. Seedlings stay wispy for their whole first season while the roots build below ground. Feed lightly, weed carefully so they are not swamped, and the blades broaden noticeably from the second spring.

Chinese chives are the rare herb that improves every year on one afternoon's effort. Browse all our seeds and the rest of our growing guides — and if you sow one perennial herb this summer, make it a tray of garlic chives.