Harvesting Shallots

[Alice]

Did you see the size of mine grown in a container Cutecumber. I thought they were big. Are yours even bigger ? But they did make great whole roast shallots.

[Cutecumber]

Alice, yes, thanks.

Mine look like big flattened globe onions - not shallot shape at all. THey could be 3 inches round!

Will try and get a shot as they're a bit hilarious.

The ones in the ground are behaving quite normally.

[queen of the cobs]

I planted some red sun shallots this year - i have found them EXTREMELY variable.

some are really huge, like you describe, and are generally in 2s or not split at all (have stray onion sets crept in?) Some have split into 5s and look pretty good. The rest haven't really grown much the stems are quite short and they are small themselves, even for shallots, although they have mostly split into 4s and 5s.

[Flummery]

Mine ditto. I reckon I've probably got the same weight of shallots as I usually get, but much bigger ones. Good, say I - I hate the fiddly peeling but love the shallots. By the way, I've got a loner too and the stray onion set theory had crossed my mind! It's not the nice pink that the others are either.

[Cutecumber]

Well I would agree with you about the stray onion, except it would be an enormous coincidence if I had chosen two from a bag that both turned out to be onions...

...and five I chose for the ground just happened to be real shallots...

It is mighty spooky, though.

Good to know that others are having a strange Red Sun year

[jinx]

Is there anyone on this board living in Ireland? I'm growing Longor shallots here for the first time and they just don't seem to be growing as well as they did when I grew them in Southampton. I'm not sure if it's my soil, or the weather, or the variety, or the timing, or something else. I planted them in late Feb (I know they were in the ground by 25 Feb but I can't remember if that's the day they went in). They've split OK but they just don't look happy and slugs and snails keep eating the green tops.

[Cutecumber]

OK, I've got a shot of my monster shallots... the pot is 30cm diameter and so the largest shallot is 8cm in diameter. The small one is from the same batch but planted in soil in another part of the garden. Oh, and that's an Aruba lettuce that has regenerated itself after being cut...