Shallots

[Elsa]

In old gardening books you often see that planting small shallots will result in big shallots, big ones will give many small ones. This year we tested it. Half a row of small ones, another half row of big ones. And the small shallots gave us more by weight than the big ones, and they were really bigger than those from the big ones. We shall probably try again next year, but it would be fun if somebody else will do it too.

[Colin_M]

That's interesting Elsa!

And it would also solve my other problem: having waited ages to get my crop, it goes against the grain to keep the biggest ones for next year's seed. By the same token, it's always a pain to peel small shallots - now we seems to have a solution that suits both the gardener and the cook .

[retropants]

I grew banana shallots this year from seed. All but one formed a giant shallot, not a bunch of smaller ones. Is this right?

[Johnboy]

Hi Retropants,
Yes is the answer to your question. We had a large discussion a couple of years ago on this forum. A question of doubt remains as to whether Banana Shallots are true Shallots or not.
With a normal Shallot, if you dissect it, you can actually see how many divisions that you would have got had you resown it instead of eating it.
With the Banana Shallot they seem to lack the capability to divide normally. I bought a Kilo of BS and dissected them and found that very few, if resown, would have given any divisions. The vast majority would have gone straight to seed and I think that this was the general opinion.
Wonderful as they are it is therefore recommended that you grow BS from seed each year for best results. If you need seed the best way is to resow a shop bought one unless none of your own crop have produced seed.
To me they have a really good flavour and are ace when using them for cooking as they are the right shape to process.
ENJOY!
JB.

[peter]

The ones I left in the ground at the end of 2007 and took seed from in 2008 survived the winter and I have just taken a second lot of seed to dry from them.
Each single shallot in 2007 had multiple shallots at seed time in 2008.
This has increased this year and I dissected two flowered bulbs this weekend and found that what looked like a single shallot with a seed head actually had snuggled up against the flowered bulb a new bulb ready for next year. This was down under the last brown skin.

[retropants]

Thanks JB!

I am very happy with them actually, they grew to enormous proportions! Some are at least 6-8 inches long, and about 9 inches circumference, but then all my onions this year are gargantuan!