This was the first year that I have grown anything in the onion family from seed. I purchased the seed from Johnny's Selected Seeds last year. In February when everyone else was sowing their onion seeds I sowed 18 cups. I sowed the cups thickly as onion seed is supposed to have a very short life. The germination was excellent. I never did thin them. They went out to harden in April. Twelve sups were planted in the potager and the other six sat there until late May. The remaining six cups were planted in the driveway bed. Those planted in the potager were harvested a little at a time, the thinnings were used as green onions and the larger bulbs harvested when the tops fell over. Today I harvested the ones that were planted in the driveway bed. WOW!!!
The bulbs were large to huge and they seemed to have suffered no ill effects from being crowded. I harvested 19 bulbs and they are in the garage curing.
I will definitely be growing them again next year. I am also thinking of trying some other types of onions next year. If you have never grown shallots from seed I highly recommend giving them a try.
Congratulations on your shallot success! I grew shallots from sets once and the results were pretty disappointing. I should try seeds. I have good luck with onion and leek seeds. I don't know why I never thought to grow shallots from seed as well.
ReplyDeleteI never had any luck growing onions from sets, the main reasin I never tried them from seed. I had no idea how easy they were from seed. Right now I'm thinking of trying red scallions and the the red torpedo onion next yeat.
DeleteI haven't grown shallots at all in over a decade. Some year I'll have to try it again, but none of my recipes calls for shallots, so I'd have to work on that too.
ReplyDeleteNone of my recipes call fro shallots either. I have been using them as replacement for onions. Yhe only thing I do different is add them at alater stge when fried as they are so much thinner than sliced onion.
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