They look fabulous. I haven't grown any overwintered onions, and I wouldn't mind having a few a those in my kitchen right now. We're using last years shallots still, which feels decadent, but really isn't, and sometimes you just need a good ol' onion! Did you transplant, or direct seed and just did a good job thinning? Would plastic help with the work load? I haven't used plastic on onions but maybe it would be worth it for a crop in the ground that long? On a side note, I had a couple of small totes of shallots left in "storage" (unheated spare bedroom) so I sorted through them and took most of them to market a couple weeks ago. I sold them for $3/lb (maybe too cheap?) and people raved about them and they were gone in two market days. Too late to do anything about it this year, but I was thinking it might be a good crop to plant more of, since I'm getting to market earlier with the new hoophouse and they store so well.

We had several onion plants that we planted last year. They didn't all get pulled, and this year I'm selling them. I'm thinking about planting some late this year to be able to get a head start for next year.

Kelise,
I transplant them just when the fall rains start, seeding in flats in mid august. I would prefer to direct seed but have no irrigation in that field, so I rely on the (not so reliable) rain.

I've contemplated the plastic suggestion and others have suggested the same. I still continue to be a little too stubborn to use plastic for weed control. I use it here and there for small amounts of early hot weather crops, but not for weeds. My thought as of now is that I'm going to try wider row spacing next year so I can bring the BCS down alongside each row. That should just leave in row weeding, which I can manage better.

Nice job on the shallots. I'm always amazed at how well they store, even in less than perfect conditions.

-Mark

Mark, How cold for how long do you get? We get lots of below freezing and possible below zeros. This last year was the first year that we planted plants, instead of sets. We were pleasantly surprised with the 'volunteer' onions and our customers were also, totally sold out Saturday what we brought.

Here it gets down to about 20F but usually just for a few days now and again. The cloud cover and drizzle in the Pacific NW usually keeps it just above freezing most of the winter.

I'm not sure how much cold onions can take before freezing. I've heard from folks in the NE that they can pull off overwintering onions with floating row cover.

The ones that kept over this winter were just regular sweet onion plants. Not the winter onions. I guess I can try and if it works, great.