Growing Shallots for Your Natural Flavours!
Growing Shallots is easy and fun! We had grown onions and garlic's in 2008. In early spring 2009 my husband bought the shallot sets to surprise me. He smiled and said to me that, I should plant something different. He said: " I bought you something strong!". Shallots look like little onions. Shallot bulbs has stronger flavour than onions. We see often extra strong flavour pale grey skin shallots and ordinary flavour brown skin shallots in the market. Shallots are mostly used for food seasoning. Planting shallots is very easy and they need almost no care! Shallots love a weed free, good rich, light drainage, moist growing bed. They love a sunny place; they are always happy to share their growing bed with the other vegetable plants. Let's start with the shallot sets! You can get Shallot sets from the organic garden seeds supplier around late winter to early spring. It comes often with a 250 grams small brown paper bag.
One complete shallot bulb should be attached to many individual cloves like garlic's. Each clove will grow into one complete bulb. Grow shallots clove the best in early spring. Their growing cycles are similar to the garlic cloves, but they grow much faster than garlic bulbs. Shallots are grown in clumps and they are shallow-rooted. Sow them half an inch deep and 4 inch apart or 12 inches in row, points up to level with the ground surface. I rely always on the rich garden worm compost as our whole year round organic fertilizers: In this way, we served nothing more than the natural rain water from the sky. We let the plant extract their own fertilisers. You may harvest the leaves everyday through out the growing season and harvest the complete bulbs when the bulbs are fully formed or until the leaves are dry and yellowish. Harvest on a dry day. Pull out the entire plant with the help from a digging tool and let them dry for a few days in a cool place. When dried, remove as much ground as possible, cut the leaves half an inch above the shallot bulbs and store in a dark cool and no moist place. They can last for a long time. |
