Kitchen Garden Forum

I only grew shallots for the first time this year and planted the bulbs in Spring. Somebody I know has mentioned that he's just planting his bulbs now. I wasn't aware that they were winter-hardy.
When do all of you plant yours? And if you plant them now, is there any benefit in over-wintering them, either in terms of hardiness, disease resistance or extra growth/size?

We plant in spring but you can buy sets that are winter hardy to plant now - just like planting overwintering onions.

We did try shallots once but it wasn't very successful and we get enough from our spring sowing.

I always plant my shallot sets in autumn (Jermor this year), that is now, and they seem to stand the winter very well. I suppose the advantage is an earlier harvest. I then grow some from seeds in spring as well.

Last year I did not grow any summer onions because they are always too large for my purpose, even though I multisow them in cells. So for this year we made do with overwintering onions (Radar) until about August and now we are using the shallots (both those grown from sets and from seed) which should last us until the first overwintering onions are ready next late spring.

I am certainly hoping that we will be completely self supporting in onions/shallots.

The received wisdom is to plant shallots on the shortest day and harvest them on the longest. In practise this is not necessary and it does not really work out that way, but it summarises well the shallot's typical lifecycle, which is that they start into growth as soon as the year starts turning in late winter, to mature and ripen in the heat of summer. I usually plant mine in February, and I'm not sure when I harvest. When they've withered down of their own accord is when, I suppose. I'm never in a hurry for them to mature early: there are always a few left in store from the previous year when the new ones are ready.

Forgot to mention that we start ours in pots in the cold greenhouse.

FelixLeiter wrote:The received wisdom is to plant shallots on the shortest day and harvest them on the longest.

I've seen this advice quoted for shallot seeds.
Are saying you'd follow the same approach for sets?

Colin, I know you asked FL the question, but I will just give my two ha'penny's worth: I have always found it better to both plant shallot sets and seeds later than usually recommended. Otherwise you end up with plants which need planting outside when the weather is still quite inclement and as a result the shallots think they have had their winter and bolt!

The sets I plant either in October or April and the seeds I sow around early/mid February which certainly fits our climate here.