How to: Chive Plant Spacing

Chives provide a mild onion flavor to both cooked and fresh dishes. The plants have grasslike blades but they don't produce a bulb like other members of the onion family. Chives are typically grown from seeds or divisions. Both are readily available at garden centers and from seed suppliers. Chives require enough garden space to access nutrients and moisture in the soil, so proper spacing is critical regardless of whether you grow the plants from seeds or transplants.

Fertilizer
Seeds or transplants

Instructions

- 1
  Spread 2 tbsp. of 16-16-8 fertilizer over each square foot of planting area. Work the fertilizer into the top 6 inches of the bed. Prepare the bed in early spring as soon as the soil is workable for seed planting, or in late spring after frost danger is past if you are growing divisions or transplants.
- 2
  Sow chives seeds on the soil surface, planting approximately three seeds per inch of row. Space the rows 4 to 6 inches apart. Cover the seeds with 1/4 inch of soil.
- 3
  Thin the seedlings once they sprout, usually within two weeks of sowing. Pull up the extra seedlings so the remaining plants are spaced 2 to 4 inches apart in the row.
- 4
  Plant chive transplants and divisions 4 inches apart in the row. Plant the chives at the same depth they were growing at previously. Space the rows 4 to 6 inches apart.

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