🧅 Chives
The cut-and-come-again windowsill green — one pot feeds a season.
Chives at a glance
Is Chives frost tolerant?
Here it is grown as a windowsill pot, so frost is not part of the picture. Keep it somewhere that stays between 12 and 26°C.
What temperature does Chives grow best in?
It grows best between 12 and 26°C. Below 6°C it stops growing altogether, and above 30°C it slows down.
How many days does Chives take to mature?
About 25–35 days. That is a typical figure: it needs roughly 380 °C·d of warmth above 6°C, so a warm season gets it there sooner and a cool one later. The city calendars below give the sow and harvest dates for each place.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 30) − 6), and Chives is ready when that total reaches 380. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 6°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 380 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 12–26°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | -20°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | -30°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 30°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 25–35 days |
| Yield per bed | 8 bunches |
Things worth knowing
- Chives regrow from the base after cutting: one sowing gives three to five harvests.
- The oniony bite comes from sulfur compounds released only when cells are cut — no cutting, no tears.
Where and when to sow Chives
Pick your city to see the months when Chives scores well against that city's real climate records: