How to Grow Shallots

The onion for people who have given up on onions.

A shallot is not a small onion. It is a different thing that behaves differently in the ground, and in the two ways that matter it is easier.

• One set becomes a clump. Plant a single bulb and you lift six to twelve. An onion set gives you one onion. So a modest handful of sets fills a bed and pays for itself several times over.
• Day length barely matters. This is the important one. Bulb onions need the right day length for your latitude or they simply never bulb, and it is the reason most first attempts at onions fail with no obvious cause. Shallots are far more forgiving, so a gardener who has been beaten twice by onions can grow shallots in the same bed and get a crop.

When to plant

Plant sets from autumn into early winter, March through June, and lift them the following summer as the tops fall over. In the far north you can push planting later than the south.

Planting sets

Buy certified sets rather than using supermarket shallots, which are often treated to stop them sprouting and may carry disease. Once you have a crop you can keep your own best bulbs for next year and never buy again.

1. Pick an open, sunny bed with free-draining soil. Shallots rot in wet ground faster than almost anything else you grow, so if your soil holds water, plant into a raised bed or a ridge.
2. Do not manure the bed fresh. Rich nitrogen gives soft bulbs that will not keep. A bed that grew a hungry crop last season is ideal.
3. Push each set in nose up so the tip is just at the surface, about 15 cm or six inches apart with 30 cm or a foot between rows.
4. Firm the soil around them and net if birds are a problem. Birds pull newly planted sets out for sport rather than food, and pushing them back in usually works.

Looking after them

Very little, which is the appeal. Keep the bed weed free, because shallots have shallow roots and lose badly to competition, and hand weed rather than hoeing close to the clumps.

Water in dry spells while the clumps are swelling, then stop once the bulbs are full and the tops start to yellow. Watering late produces bulbs that will not store, which is the most common way a good crop is wasted.

Do not feed after midwinter. Late nitrogen keeps them growing when they should be ripening.

Harvest and cure

Lift when the tops have yellowed and fallen over of their own accord. Do not bend them over to hurry it, which is old advice that damages the neck and shortens storage.

1. Ease the whole clump up with a fork on a dry day and separate the bulbs.
2. Lay them somewhere dry and airy, out of direct sun, for two to three weeks. A shed floor, a wire rack or a slatted bench all work.
3. They are cured when the necks are papery and completely dry and the skins rustle.
4. Rub off loose soil, trim the roots, and either plait the tops or cut them to a couple of centimetres.

Store somewhere cool, dark and dry, never in a sealed bag or the fridge. Properly cured they hold for six to eight months, which takes a summer crop through to the following planting.

Saving your own sets

Keep back the best dozen bulbs from each harvest, medium sized rather than the largest, firm and unblemished, and replant those. A shallot line kept this way improves for your conditions year on year and costs nothing. Skip any clump that showed disease or bolted.

What goes wrong

• Rot in the ground. Almost always drainage. Raise the bed or ridge the row.
• Bolting to a flower stem. Usually a cold snap after planting, or sets that were stored too warm. Use the bolted ones first, since they will not keep.
• Small bulbs. Crowding, weeds, or a bed too dry while they were swelling.
• They will not store. Watered too late, fed too late, or not cured for long enough. Curing is the step people cut short.

See also: Shallot in the Plant Library for sowing months tuned to your region, and Onions from sets for the crop shallots are usually planted beside.