The main thing to remember about planting your harvested shallots this coming fall -- size is critical.

If you plant your largest shallots in the fall, the following spring you will have plants with many leaves, and each plant will produce numerous (5-8) small bulbs .

If you plant your smallest shallot bulbs in the fall, the following spring you will have plants with only one or two leaves that will each produce one or two large bulbs.

Each year I keep all the largest and smallest bulbs for subsequent years' plantings, and save all the medium ones for eating.

I always do well growing shallots from seed. Your plants will grow bigger and bigger, and then divide into 3-5 plantlets, which will splay out and eventually start withering -- late July in SW Virginia. That's when I pull and cure them -- each plantlet yields a shallot.

In my experience, the cured shallots are not ready to break dormancy in October, so any I plant then rot. If I have any left in spring I can plant those, but I don't think they do any better than new seedlings.

So planatus, when do you start your shallot seed each year?