From what I understand, shallots are basically bienniel. You plant a larger shallot, and it divides into many smaller shallots. You plant the smaller shallots the next season and they plump up to larger shallots. I, like you, planted decent sized bulbs and wound up with a bunch of things the size of garlic cloves. I plant to plant those in the fall, but I will also get a few larger bulbs to plant as well. That way, I should get some large and some small bulbs from the harvest. Large ones to use and small ones to plant for the next season.

Best of luck!
Susan

Are the ones from the grocery store ok to plantt? I was planning on doing a few this fall.

This is my first year growing shallots too, I planted two types, one no-name one from Home depot that went in around Feb, and one was picasso shallots from Fedco, planted in early April. I also planted potato onions from Fedco at the same time.

The home depot shallots (there were only 8 in the bag) were smaller than store shallots, maybe 1" max diameter, and have each divided into about 10-20 stems with narrow leaves (looking similar to chives). The picasso shallots and potato onions were more varied in size, some around 1.5" diameter but some as small as marbles, and each one divided into about 5 stems with medium sized leaves. Currently the potato onions and picasso shallots are bulbing up at the base and already about 1" diameter, the home depot shallots are not really showing much sign of bulbing up, and the stems are so crowded that I doubt they could grow to an appreciable size even if they had the inclination.

Judging by the difference in foliage, I suspect the shallots from home depot are some sort of dwarf variety that produces many little bulbs, considering that larger and smaller picasso shallots and potato onions produced larger leaved plants with fewer stems.

I've tried growing shallots from the grocery store 3 times, never with success. I believe that they are irradiated or otherwise treated to inhibit sprouting. Shallots from the grocery store are also likely to have been grown from seed rather than grown from offsets because that is more suited to mechanical cultivation, so they might not act like a traditional shallot even if they did grow. I have had good luck with garlic and elephant garlic from the grocery store.

I have many hundred to plant this fall.
I was thinking it was like garlic the largest cloves made the largest heads.

I just harvested my shallots grown from the largest bulbs from the previous year. I planted them in the late fall early winter. For the most part (70% of the harvest) the harvested bulbs are smaller than the seed bulbs, but I'm getting 7-10 bulbs per plant so I have more than replaced my large sized starters. All of them are larger than the original sets from the nursery that I planted two years ago. The original small sets only produced 2-4 bulbs per plant, and most of those were not great big.

This Fall/winter I think I will plant two groups, the largest, and the smallest (tall skinny ones). The largest to produce many seed-sets, and the smaller for large eating bulbs. I don't think that I would plant the smallest mini bulbs (like the sets I got from the store).

I did have a few bolt and flower. If they are like onions, then the largest sets would tend to do this more than the smaller ones.

THANK YOU!!!!!!

I too was wondering why my shallots were so much smaller than the bulbs I bought to plant.

No one ever mentioned that they were bi-annual, sort of like growing garlic from bulbils. LOL

What about the bulbs from this years crop, harvested next year? When planted, will it still be the 'small first year, larger the second', or, will they be large?

I'm wondering if I should get more seed stock to plant, so as to alternate? Am I making sense?

I am having this same problem, so I thought I'd try to revive this thread. I see that most of the posts happened last summer, so does anyone have updates for this year? When planting the small shallots, did big shallots result? I planted some French grey shallots from abundant life seeds last October (they were all a big size). This variety has an amazing flavor and it's so hard to find (and expensive) I don't have much room for error! The bulbs I dug up this weekend look healthy and smell heavenly, but they are really tiny. Each bulb produced about 10 tiny shallots. Any tips to get this right would be much appreciated.

I got side tracked last fall and did not plant any shallots or garlic and I had such grand plans for my garlic business.

The size of shallot being planted seems to determine the size of the harvested bulb. Unlike garlic it seems that planting smaller cloves results in bigger bulbs. This spring I only planted small cloves and it looks like I am going to be harvesting some nice big bulbs this year.

I just dug my garlic today. I planted last October and got a nice looking crop!

Good luck everybody!

I always thought that shallots needed long day lengths, which could explain why you all in the lower latitudes are having problems with them. Although I could be wrong.

This is the first year that I have grown shallots. Last fall I planted 4 bulbs and I harvested 29 good sized ones.

{{gwi:364644}}

Rodney

So, this is my third year with Multiplier Onions. My experience is not quite like the rest of your reported experience.

First of all, I purchased one pound of M. Onions from a vendor and planted them 2 years ago. That pound I bought was a total of 22 cloves. The next year, I harvested 138 cloves. I planted those in the following Fall.

This Summer I harvested everything from that bed; the result was 304 cloves. Plus, some of those are multiples that can be separated when planting, so I estimate probably 350 plantable cloves.

Now, I did not discriminate as to what to plant based on size. Basically, I planted everything, hoping to build my base of Multiplier Onions. So, there were some large, medium, and small planted each time.

So, this fall I will plant the 300 - 350 cloves and hope to reap 700 - 1000 next year.

This is part of building my allium business so that I can eventually sell seed alliums to other people.

I've been trying for years, and this year I got seed stock from Peacefulvalley (french red), planted about six in a self watering planter, and harvested today. Most were huge! Here is a picture of the huge ones, some that were much smaller, and one from a local Asian grocery store. There is also a quarter for relative size. I planted these in November, same time as some garlic I planted in the ground. The garlic was a big failure this year.

Posted by theforgottenone1013 5b Mich (My Page) on Sat, Jul 9, 11 at 16:03

I always thought that shallots needed long day lengths, which could explain why you all in the lower latitudes are having problems with them. Although I could be wrong.
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I now realize that "theforgottenone" has demonstrated in theory and practice, WHY people in the lower states have difficulties growing shallots.

I knew that onions are day length sensitive. That is why you have to know what variety to plant in your garden for best results. It appears to me that shallots are probably the same way. Technically shallots are onions too.

But I wonder, like onions, if there are short day, intermediate day and long day varieties out there.

It was in the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange catalog that I read a reference to day length for growing shallots (I think I read it somewhere else too). Their catalog reads: "Our shallots are widely adapted and do not require special day lengths to yield well."

Their catalog also reads in reference to multiplier onions and shallots that: "The larger bulbs are saved for eating, and the medium and small bulbs are stored and replanted."

So it seems that both day length and the size of the bulb planted affects the future harvested bulb size.

Rodney

Maybe 50 years ago some breeding work was done with shallots in Louisiana, and a few strains (now rare to lost) were developed. Unlike familiar intermediate to long day shallots, they were almost evergreen alliums that formed long, cone-shaped shallots when cured. But mostly they were grown as a bunch type allium that produced greens for cutting year round.

My climate is barely acceptable for long day onions but many shallot varieties work. Seed-sown Saffron does well year after year, so it may be better for the lower latitudes.

I have a question... I have planted shallots this year.Will cutting the tops make them grow larger?

I had the problem with too small shallots growing from bulbs off the rack, I switched to growing transplants from seeds (first time last season) planted the seed March 31/2014, and transplanted May 15th(the transplant bulbs were about 3/16" dia.) and they grew too large I think. I was expecting torpedo shaped approximately 1" dia. and got almost 3" average, mostly doubles The Variety was Camelot French Shallots, a very good flavor, and color, but a way larger than I expected! Hope the picture comes through. The paper they are on is 81/2x11" for size comparison{{gwi:364645}}

Holy Cow Brae!! Those are shallots?

I'm in zone 9 and have started some Saffron and Zebrune from seed. They are in 16 oz cups at the moment and look like fragile threads. I was hoping they would grow a little larger so I could put them out by March 1 - I suspect they won't do well with our hot summers.....

Lol I got one that size last year from a batch of small chinese shallots that that have been multiplying and growing for the last three years. I'm thinking now, that the originals were probably seed grown because of what of the size of the shallots that I got later.. The plants went to flower due to stress last winter (I wasn't here to water them for two months.) but I cooked all the scapes and let the plants continue to grow... As they grew I noticed the flower stumps were slowly pushed to the side and the shallots started to grow HUGE like the seed planted shallots... I got one HUGE shallot the size of a good sized red onion and a few BIG shallots... I kept the biggest one's, which I'm growing right now.. That HUGE shallot has already divided into three... I didn't pay attention to how many divisions the smaller ones split into but they are still kind of big too...

I tried Zebrune last year but I only got four plants that survived, which I'm going got experiment growing....

Speaking of experiments, I grew an onion plant that grew from one dime sized bulbil, like a walking onion... The parent plant didn't grow a flower, just one big purple bulbil. The plant looks nothing like the white parent plant... It has a purple tinge near the roots and Its VERY healthy.. I'm just trying to see if it does the same thing this year and/or if it divides...

If you have noticed that the largest bulbs come from the plants that have the fewest divisions, you can put down end bulb size to degree of crowding. The more divisions in the clump, the worse the crowding, and so the smaller the end bulbs will be,just like having planted say one's onions or garlic too close together.

Has anyone worked out a technique for dividing the clumps as they come up in the spring and spacing out the resulting transplants? What little I have tried has only been marginally successful, if one can call it even that. I lost a lot of the transplanted divisions, but those that did survive seemed to be somewhat larger than the normal run. It is difficult to find the separation lines to make the divisions, at least it is to get down to one and two sprout divisions. I would guess that if one could easily break up the clumps into two or three sprout divisions even that might help with end bulb size.

Hmm I'm in 10b with a home garden. A technique might work for dividing smaller shallots but I'm not sure about it working for growing larger shallots, unless you have a fast growing culitvar with perfect shallot growing conditions. I know I harvested some red shallots last spring, let them cure and plopped the smaller ones back in the ground. I let them grow and divide until the summer sun caused the leaves to die back, then pulled them to cure again... By October the dried clumps were easy to divide for fall planting. Average starting bulb was about 1/4" wide and 1" tall, with the largest being 1/2" wide and 1 1/2" tall... This was an exeriment, I don't usually grow shallots ths way. I usually stick to the traditional method for growing shallots.

I do like experiments to learn how the plants grow though... Like, an observation on an allium that I'm growing right now (not sure if cepa or fistulosum but acts like fistulosum with minor bulbing), it only divides into two plants asexually but also grows a flower in the area of the split from the main plant... Weird...

Hey all

First year growing shallots (Yellow Dutch Moon) and I'm a little worried I picked them to early (Just picked them today). As per the advice I was able to find online, I waited until the stems were withering & falling over. However, unlike the shallots I see in the stores, or that I purchased for planting last year, mine do not have anywhere near as thick a skin (though they do have several clearly evident layers of skin). Have I messed things up? Is there anything I can do at this point?

Thanks in advance.

I ordered Dutch Yellow Shallots from Territorial Seeds last fall. I harvested them today.

They look pretty decent. I will save the largest for next fall because it's expensive to

order shallots online.

Just as long as your plants didn't flower and you cure them well, I think you're ok. You can eat some and replant the rest later. This year has been too warm and dry for me, so most of my shallots just divided and didn't grow so large. I'm planning on harvesting my shallots next week but dreading cleaning the ones I'm going to eat, since I have so many tiny ones.

Hi Mav & roper- thanks for getting back to me :D. And thank you for the picture (roper) - my shallots look pretty much like yours do so thats rather reassuring for an anxious first-time grower of shallots. The weather in my neck of the woods (zone b) has been intermittently hot and dry, then soaking thunderstorms and v. cool, and then back again, etc. etc. From what I can tell that hasn't been particularly good for my shallots. I planted about 2 pounds of shallots (lost almost half to some really crappy winter weather) and only got about 3 pounds back. Sigh. Well maybe next year will be better.

First of all shallots and potato onions are true perennials, THEY ARE NOT BIENNIALS, but they have a tendency to alternate between lots of smaller divisions one year which grow into fewer but larger divisions the next year. This is something breeders would like to be able to change, but there hasn't been much success overcoming this every other year big, every other year small bulb size. The most uniform size outcome from year to year would be from seed.

Hi OldDutch- thank you that is a really good thing to know. For this fall would I be best served by planting my larger or smaller cloves for a better harvest next year?

Thanks again

Plant some of both, the smaller to medium ones to size up for cooking and enugh of the larger to divide into next years planting stock. Cook mainly the larger ones. Except always plant back the very largest, hopefully to select for increasing sizes, and make sure to mark those when you plant so you know the resulting daughter lines next year. Some strains produce larger bulbs than others so there is some room for selection to improve bulb size. Small size bulbs are a common complaint about both shallots and potato onions.

This is a different growth pattern than with garlic, where you always plant the largest cloves to produce the largest possible bulbs.

What OldDutch said . . .

The very largest will blossom into many small ones,

The small ones will grow into big ones,

And the mediums . . . . Ah HA HA HA HA,

Will split between the two.

Good Luck!!

w

Some of mine from this year. Tear drop shape are from seed; ambition, I think. The others are Dutch Yellow from groworganic...I think.

if you get a clump of small shallots do you divide them or leave in clumps when you plant following season?

I divide.

"if you get a clump of small shallots do you divide them or leave in clumps when you plant following season?"

The only reason you would plant a whole bulb cluster, would be if the intended use was scallions. The bulbs would still multiply, but be smaller in size. To get the largest bulbs & the best increase, the individual bulbs should each be planted separately.

thanks