And Finally, Introducing Chives

I have chosen my fourth and final herb to grow: the lucky winner was Chives. In the previous post I mentioned that the two herbs I was deciding between both started with the letter "C", and the other herb was Chamomile (German Chamomile). Initially, I had been leaning toward Chamomile for its medicinal properties, but the more I read about it, the more it was sounding that it's really not best to grow this herb indoors and in containers: you get the most yield from it when it's allowed to roam freely in an actual garden. Again, might be something I try to tackle later on down the line. So, I won't be making any infusions with Chives, but I'll definitely be using it a lot in cooking. Let's get to know this little herb better.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) share a genus with onions, garlic, and scallions, a brotherhood of stink. No mythological influence on the name with this herb: "all" means "stinky" or "pungent" in Celtic, a reference that stuck when the herb was given its Latin name. While we usually hear of the health benefits of garlic and onion, chives are just as beneficial, as it too contains the compound credited for garlic and onion's health benefits: allicin. Culpeper has little to say on Chives, and what he does say is mostly negative. Chives may not seem as "sexy" as the other herbs I chose, but I'm still happy to have it as part of my indoor garden.

Now that I'm all done choosing the herbs I will be growing, what will I do next? I think I'm going to prepare the containers I'll be using to grow the herbs in. The blender base hasn't gone into surgery yet, so I think I'm going to get to work on that, along with cleaning up the coffee cans and sprucing them up with some paint. The houseplants I re-potted are still alive, perhaps a harbinger of success to come (I know, that's a stretch, but any little thing!). I was worried they might collapse, resisting acclimation to the new soil, but all is well.

With February almost over and the days getting warmer and sunnier, I notice myself getting even more antsy to begin growing, especially now that I have my list of herbs concretized.