Shallots

[Amanda1]

Can any one help with advising me as to when the best time is to plant out shallot sets? In the GYO magazine it says to try and plant out before Xmas but I've noticed that many suppliers don't start supplying these until the new year. The gardening books I have haven't been much help. I live in London and have clay soil if this makes a difference. Many thanks!

[Esther Greentree]

Planting shallots

Hi Amanda,

As far as I know, it depends on the kind of shallots that you have. Grey shallots are planted any time from October until January, whereas all the others are planted from February to April, depending on their hardiness.

I'm in London too, and I have Red Sun shallots, so I'll be planting them after my potatoes, so end of March - beginning of April.

I hope this helps.

Esther

[Amanda1]

Thanks, I will wait for next year!

[nick the grief]

Hi Amanda,

You could grow Ambition shallots from seed and plant them out later or if you want bulbs Aristocrat is one that isn't supposed to be planted till about april. Failing that you could always buy some now and grow them on in pots and plant out later, I did this my first year as I couldn't take my plot over till april and I started most things off like this. Some of the guys round here haven't planted there shallots yet and we havn't got london clay to contend with so don't wait till next year have a go with a couple of rows your only risking 2' of lottie space or there abouts

[sewer rat]

Shallots

Hi Amanda
My shallot sets arrived today, and being way too impatient to leave them all sitting til late Feb / March, I will be doing as NtG suggested and planting them up in pots this wekend in my unheated greenhouse for planting out in the beds at a later date. I'll do this with half and plant the remainder out as suggested on the instructions that came with them.. Be interesting to compare the results as to which fare better.
Cheers
Rat

[nick the grief]

For info Rat, I did mine on the 21st december (old folk lore - plant on the shortest day, harvest on the longest)

I was given 12 Hative be Nort by someone so not wanting to loose any they were potted up in 5" pots in a mix of my old JI3 compost from the Chrysanth pots & a bit of new Multipurpose. They have just started to sprout and have been subjected to temperatures of around -2c in the little house.

The first year I had my lottie I did similat with some Golden Gourmet shallots but used 20cell plant paks. They were fine and I got aroung 6 bulbs per plant at the end. Good Job I like Pickled Onions as I grew about 50 of the little blighters as I didn't know what they'd crop like

ntg

[Cab]

Mine go in some time in February. You can probably get a better crop putting them in in the Autumn or winter, but there's less can go wrong when you put them in later. If you're growing them from seed, now is your time (even earlier), like if you're trying to grow big onions sets from seed, plant them in pots now. But for sets, no hurry.