It’s getting late in the summer. By now, you have really started to see the benefits of a great garden like your straw bale garden. I didn’t plan on having chives in my garden, but I must have missed a few roots this spring when preparing the garden site.
I actually moved the chives to a perennial garden. The flowers are pretty, and they will grow in any kind of environment. You don’t have to worry about 100 million new sprouts from the chives as long as you clip the flowers BEFORE they go to seed. This way, chives can be easily be controlled and maintained.
When you need to use chives for a recipe, all you need to do is go out to the garden with a scissors and cut off what you need. I have a couple of huge clumps in my garden. I am not going to use enough this year to use up the clumps so I am drying some to preserve through the winter until we can use fresh chives again next spring.
Drying chives is very easy. First, you will simply cut them from the plant and wash them.
Then dice them into small shakable pieces. Place them in a dehydrator and set it to the lowest temperature it has. Mine is 95 degrees. Let it run until they are dry. Mine dried overnight and in the morning they were ready to go.
Then, I took a 4 ounce shaker jar and filled it with the dried chives.
Now, I will have fresh from my own garden dried chives to use all winter long. You will be surprised how much you use this herb in the winter. It goes great in soups, on artisan breads, and as other seasonings. You can even shake some on a steak when you grill!
