Chives microgreens are easy to grow. They are also low maintenance. Once you plant them you are pretty much set for harvest. It is, however, the harvesting part that can be a little involving as I shall show how.
I love growing chives because they bring an amazing flavour to any microgreens or salad mix. The scientific name for chives, a herb, is Allium schoenoprasum. Close relations of chives include garlic, common onion and shallot leek among others.
You can have a look at my guide on growing onion microgreens here. Chives impart a moderate flavor to salads as compared to onion. If you feel onion microgreens are too strong for salads, your best option would be chives.
Checklist for growing Chives Microgreens
First thing first. What is needed to successfully grow chive microgreens? Below is a quick checklist of materials and items that will be required to grow chives micros.
- Microgreens trays (supplier)
- Grow lights (supplier)
- Soil sifting pan (supplier)
- Chive seeds (supplier)
- Water spray (optional)
- Ziploc bags (supplier)
- Kitchen scissors (supplier)
- Seed Shaker (supplier)
- Water for watering
- Garden soil
Practical steps for growing Chives Microgreens
Now with required grow items on the checklist in place, it is time to start the planting process. Microgreens taste really good in a mix. That’s for sure.
So you want to create, say, a mix of chives, radish, lettuce, sunflower, cabbage, lentils, cauliflower microgreens and so on. For this reason, I highly recommend growing a variety of microgreens at the same time for this purpose. It will end in amazing flavours. Follow the links to see my other guides on growing these respective micros.
If you follow the coming steps, you should have your lovely chive microgreens with no problems at all. Let’s get started…
1. Get your Chives microgreens seeds ready
As shown above, chives seeds are black in color and tiny. Due to their size, they can be tricky to handle. Unlike swiss chard seeds that need a soak, chives seeds come ready for planting.
The following is important to keep in mind for all growers. When growing microgreens aim to use non-treated seeds. This is a precautionary measure to prevent potential food poisoning. The risk is real due to chemicals used to treat seeds. Since we harvest microgreens early, there is a risk of ingesting contaminated seed shells left behind after germination.
2. Get you growing medium ready
The next step is to prepare the growing medium for the chives microgreens. Nowadays there are a variety of growing mediums for microgreens. I will be going with good old garden soil.
I have been growing microgreens for many years using native garden soil. Any decent soil should work just fine. If you have followed my other guides you would know that, in addition, I prefer to have my soil sifted.
Sifted soil is free of debris and dirt. It comes out so fine it becomes easy for microgreen roots to easily penetrate it when moist. Shown above is typical sifted soil. You can use a sifter to achieve this. This is the reason why I added a soil sifter to the checklist above.
Set aside your sifted soil.
3. Prepare grow tray and fill with sifted soil
Chives microgreens, and all kinds of microgreens for that matter can successfully be grown in any kind of container. The principal thing is to ensure that your grow container has drain holes beneath.
If you are not going to get commercially available trays as shown above, you can drill the holes yourself on your own home made or repurposed containers.
Next, fill the containers with the sifted soil from step 2 above. Ensure that the soil is lightly compacted. It must not be too loose nor too compacted.
4. Bottom water the soil in the tray
The next step is to water the soil in the tray. This is shown above in the file pic. This will be the only time we water the tray. The next time around will be after the germination of the chives seeds.
I recommend bottom watering on microgreens trays. It is smart and to the point. Alternatively, one could use a spray with a fine spray nozzle. I no longer use this method as it is often messy and tends to shift soil.
To bottom water your tray, place the tray in a bigger container. Fill the bigger container with water. The water will seep into the soil using the drain holes beneath the tray. This method is fast, In a few minutes the entire soil in the tray will be soaked thoroughly and moist.
5. Plant your Chives Microgreens seeds
Once the tray is well watered, the next step is to plant the chives microgreen seeds. The way to do this is by using a seed shaker/spreader or your hand.
Take a scoop of the seeds in your hand. Begin to spread the seeds generously and evenly across the top of the now moist soil in the tray. We are looking for an even germination covering all areas of the tray.
6. Gently press the Chives Microgreens seeds into the soil
This step is an important step. We are not going to cover our chives seeds with any soil in the traditional way of planting. Instead, we are going to gently push the seeds into the moist soil.
The press is light and done using your four fingers. All we want is for the seeds to make decent contact with the soil and not to bury them in the soil. This step ensures that the seeds draw from the moisture in the soil.
7. Cover the tray and store away
After step 6, take a fitting board and place it on top of the tray. The board will sit directly on top of the seeds now lightly pressed into the soil.
The board can be paper, wood or glass. The board applies some gemetle weight on the seeds which improves germination. It also ensures even germination of the seeds in the tray.
Some growers go a step further to put some weight on top of the board. This can be a stone or another planted tray of microgreens. Overall, this modest weight does no harm to the seeds. The seeds will germinate regardless of the weight on top. It is a wonder indeed.
Place your covered tray in a dark place with good air circulation.
8. Water the Chives Microgreens immediately after germination.
At about day 3 or 4, your chives microgreens would have germinated. From this point on its growth unstoppable. The microgreens must be watered for the second time since step 4.
Take your chives microgreens from the dark place, unveil the tray and water it.
Shown above is, again, a simple bottom watering method. This is how it works. a) place your microgreens tray in a bigger container. b) fill the bigger tray with water. This keeps the microgreens themselves at very low risk of mould. This is a big issue when growing microgreens. It is driven by excessive moisture and water logging.
Depending on your climatic conditions, you will need to repeat this watering process once every other day. In hot weather, watering everyday may become inevitable.
9. Place your watered microgreens under artificial light
After watering, move the chives microgreens to an artificial light source. This is where the fluorescent lights mentioned in the checklist come in.
I like to sit my tray some 30cm under the grow lights. Microgreens should not be allowed to grow in direct sunlight. This is harsh and compromises the quality of the micros.
Artificial lights ensure that the microgreens continue growing no matter the time of the day. Serious microgreens growers will need to invest in microgreens grow lights now available online.
This location under the lights, in addition, must have freely circulating fresh air. This will be the home of the chives microgreens until harvest time.
10. Harvest your Chives Microgreens
The next step that comes some 7 days or so after germination is harvest. Chives microgreens grow a little slower than kale, cabbage or lettuce microgreens, for example.
What is unique to chives is that for the most part they carry the seed shell at the tips of the crop. This is a significant disadvantage when looking to consume chives as microgreens. The shells take time to fall off the canopy of the micros. By the time of harvest they will be still hanging on.
This is a clear reason why we should not use treated seeds to grow microgreens. The treated shells that lingers, as in the case of chives, can easily end up ingested by humans.
Thus at harvest, extra effort is needed to pick the shells stuck at the top of your chive microgreens. I have also resorted to trimming the canopy off which has the shells.
You may also consider delaying harvest to allow a natural falling away of the shells. However, in my experience, this takes a long time and may outrun the best time to harvest your chives microgreens.
Whichever way you choose to do it, keep in mind that there is this issue at harvest when growing chives microgreens. This is the part I referred to at the beginning of the guide which is involving.
11. Store your Chives Microgreens
Storage of your chives microgreens is something to really think about. There is a great chance that you are not going to eat the whole tray in one sitting. The remaining micros will need good storage.
Microgreens, chives included, tend to diminish rapidly in quality with time. If harvest day is x, x + 3 days means the quality of the micros is no longer the same. Although it is possible to push the boundaries, 3 days after harvest is the furthest I recommend you keep them.
Ziploc bags are handy when working with microgreens. Put your scissors harvested chives microgreens in an airtight ziploc bag and store in the fridge. Regardless, this storage should not exceed 3 days for best quality.
Commercial microgreens growers tend to deliver the harvest within 24 hours to ensure best quality for their customers. The norm is actually to deliver the micros the same day as harvest day.
So this is how to grow chives microgreens. I hope the steps are straightforward and that you will find them super easy to replicate with wonderful success!
