Maria’s 365 Chives – Our Favorite Perennial Allium

We got this excellent Allium from a fantastic Guatemalan home gardener named Maria from the Ft. Myers area. Maria speaks an indigenous Mayan language and grows a number of interesting crops from her homeland in her garden. We were excited to receive this variety as a gift on a visit to Maria’s garden given our interest in perennial onions and Alliums.

This has become our favorite perennial Allium for a number of reasons. Over the last few years we have tried at least 20 candidates on our quest to find ultra reliable perennial Alliums for Florida. This variety has stood out for being ultra hardy and easy to grow. It is able to be eaten every day of the year in Florida. As one would expect, it readily thrives through the coolest months of the year. What is truly special is that this variety thrives and provides a harvest through the Florida summer, totally undaunted by months of unrelenting heat and humidity. Garlic Chives (Allium tuberosum) is the only other Allium we are aware of that grows in this same manner. Garlic Chives is a great crop in its own right, but we feel this is a superior Florida garden option due to its better flavor (our opinion, of course). Visitors to Cody Cove Farm have consistently agreed that the aroma and flavor of this vegetable are pleasant.

We suspect this plant could be a perennial, primitive leek form based on the smell, taste and appearance of the foliage. It has flat blades like a leek but is much smaller than typical garden leeks. It certainly is not garlic chives (Allium tuberosum). There is a good possibility that this is a different Allium species entirely. At this point it remains an unidentified Allium spp.

This Allium divides perpetually and can be constantly teased apart to make more plants. Divisions are ultra hardy and establish quickly. It’s a great example of a “buy once, have forever” crop.

The greens are used like a green onion or chive though botanically it is neither. The raw greens are pungent but of great flavor to top food with. We were surprised that the bulbs cooked up to be very bitter, making them inedible. These will do best in a tended garden that gets plenty of attention and especially thorough weeding. Plants have a small profile and can easily be tucked into gaps in the garden for a quick harvest.

We met Maria through the networking of Cultivate Abundance who does advocacy work and food redistribution work in the farm worker immigrant community in Immokalee, Florida. We encourage you to donate to this cause and others that aid this vulnerable group of people.

We formerly sold this as “Maria’s Guatemalan Leeks”. We decided to change the name to “Maria’s 365 Chives” to better reflect the culinary usage of the plant.

This listing is for 10 bare root, live divisions/planting pieces.