Harvesting Shallots

[Cutecumber]

Well, if you think about it, it wouldn't be worth planting one shallot or onion to give you one shallot or onion. You may as well eat it. Sorry, that sounds stupid, but I hope you get my point.

You can keep some (small) shallots from a crop to plant for your next year's crop, or you can sow seed and use the resulting small shallots the following year. Or you can just eat them all.

One seed=1 bulb

One set=some bulbs

There are benefits for most small-scale gardeners to using sets rather than seeds - it's quicker and they are less prone to bolt. Seeds are cheaper, of course, but there are not many available to us in the UK.

On the onion side, it is more usual to grow from seed and commonplace to sow a few seeds together and thus get a clump - you get something that looks not unlike a bunch of shallots, but they haven't formed in the same way.

If you were growing for show, you might prefer seeds because the bulbs don't have to touch each other and should be more uniform.

I hope I haven't confused the matter even more!

[Paulottie]

Shallots are traditionally planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest. Spring planted should be ready in August, the leaves should be yellowing and you should see the old bulb has split into 8 or so more. They should be exposed on the surface. Plant the small bulbs after trimming tops (helps stop the birds pulling them up) with the top of bulb level with soil surface. In practice I plant in November so that they get their roots down before the frost pushes them up.

[Cutecumber]

Oh Paul! Don't say "8 or so" - I've got one lot of five and all the rest are twos, threes and fours this year! They look fine and are quite big, but...

I want more!

[Stacey]

right so this is what im getting - one small shallot is a set. if you plant it you get a group of shallots. If you plant from seed you get a small shallot that you can pull up and store until the following year when you will get a group of shallots from that set. if you leave that shallot (sown from seed) in the ground it will just get bigger and not split.

It is not the same with onions one seed makes one onion,no sets,ever.

I really apologise if i sound stupid but I'm just trying to take in so much information at the moment,sorry!

[Cutecumber]

Now the first bit's right, but you've got me asking myself questions with the second bit!!!

You put a shallot seed in, and it grows into one shallot. If you leave it in situ, does it ever split? Is it the harvesting, when young, and then re-planting that makes it do the splitting thing next year. Hmmm.

I'll have to look that up!

Onions - sets will do the same as shallots, they will split. It was traditionally more usual to grow onion from seed, but you can buy onion sets from most suppliers now. The sets are, as with the shallots, small bulbs.

We really need an onion expert to come along now

[Flummery]

As far as I understand it, an onion set is a small onion which has been treated somehow to produce an immature bulb to be grown on for next year's crop. If you grow onions from seed you don't grow a set, you grow an onion - someone will correct me if I'm wrong!

[Stacey]

Glad i got you thinking Cutecumber

[Paulottie]

CuteC, Don't envy my results this year as I am struggling with a bad outbreak of white rot both at the allotment and at home. Going to be lucky if much of it stores at all. I got the lottie ones out a week ago cause i was aware of the problem but thought I'd leave the home bed a while longer to ripen and this heavy rain has brought it on i lifted and washed the lot- fingers crossed! Shame cause I have some fab shallots at home- If anyone have any recipies for caramelised onions and how to store them let me know!

Aren't heat treated sets to stop them bolting? I believe it sterilizes them(can't flower)

I'm sure they would survive in the ground from one season to the next and form a clump -but you run the risk of rot, as with tulips. (Welsh onions are left like chives I think)

[Alice]

I lifted some shallots today. They're never going to dry off in the rain. They only split into threes and fours but they're very big. Whole roast shallots with the lamb tonight.

[dexterdoglancashire]

[QUOTE=Paulottie;112815] If anyone have any recipies for caramelised onions QUOTE]

Paulottie - look in the kitchen section, I've found a recipe for you. Bernie

[vicpivo]

Alice: How far were the bulbs poking out of the ground?

I would like to lift a few of mine now, but still a little nervous and spoiling them.

The majority of my sets have split to between 4-8 so I assume they have split OK...

[Alice]

Vicpivo, my shallots were just sticking out of the ground a few weeks ago. I cleared some compost from their necks wth my finger to let them dry off, and it rained and rained and rained. Today in desperation I decided to have some out. Great big shallots which I roasted whole to go with the lamb for dinner.
I'm not bothered about storing vegetables. I prefer to eat them fresh as I go. I hope your shallots are good.

[vicpivo]

Cheers Alice - I'm away from home on work early this week, but I will harvest on Wed/Thurs.

You've given me the confidence to go for it! I'll let you all know the results....

[Paulottie]

[QUOTE=dexterdoglancashire;116500]

If anyone have any recipies for caramelised onions QUOTE]

Paulottie - look in the kitchen section, I've found a recipe for you. Bernie

Thanks Bernie.

[Cutecumber]

OK, there's something very weird going on with my shallots - or at least some of them. They're Red Sun, by the way.

I planted two sets in pots - not huge pots, but plenty of depth - and five in the ground. None of them have split into vast numbers (five at the most), but...

... the ones in the pots are ENORMOUS.

Three shallots have formed in one pot and four in the other and they are currently the size of a medium onion. The stems are thick and still very strong and show no signs of fading. I wonder how big the bulbs will be eventually??

Meanwhile, those in the ground are nearly ready to pull and have grown in the "normal" way. They are not small, but about the third of the size of those in pots.

I must take a pic of the huge ones, they are really strange.