The end of summer arrived with a thud this year. Temperatures dropped. And the garlic chives began blooming.
Along the road the yellow ironweed is blooming. The first asters are blooming. Grass pollen is tickling the nose.
My Garlic Chive Patch
Many years ago my father gave me a pot of garlic chives. It was only a ten inch pot. It fit easily into a square foot of garden space.
This year my patch is close to eighty square feet. New patches keep showing up around the garden, in the lawn, along the edges of the lawn, wherever the birds dropped seeds. Their white flower umbels are easy to spot, not just for the color, but also for the hum surrounding the plants.
What Do You Do With Them?
All spring and summer I get this question. There must be some reason I allow this much good garden space to be covered with these plants.
I really don’t need this big of a patch. Sure, garlic chives are great in scrambled eggs, stir fries, mixed into soft cheese and relished by the goats. Still, half this patch would be more than enough.
End of Summer Beauty
Late August is the highlight of the garlic chive year. Snowy white flowers open and send out the message they are open for business. The pollinators arrive.
Small and large bumblebees, honeybees, several kinds of wasps, beetles, a variety of butterflies, bee flies, native bees move in creating a hum easy to hear all over the garden. They are so busy with the flowers I can walk through the edges and be totally ignored.
Along with the pollinators come the spiders. Webs appear. Flower spiders lurk.
Winter and lean times are coming for these creatures. This is a good chance for them to finish raising their over wintering queens or store up honey.
I really don’t need all of these garlic chives. However, this end of summer chives makes it worthwhile to have my patch.
