by Chris R.W.

Created on: February 27, 2010

Shallots are very similar to onions, in both physical properties and flavor.  But shallots tend to have a more subtle flavor than your typical onion, which can be very useful when cooking a dish that you want to add a bit of onion flavor to, but can't risk that flavor overpowering the rest of the meal.

So shallots can be very useful, though they are not a common staple within the kitchen, you might not have even ever heard of them before.  For this reason, shallots can be pretty expensive, espically compared to the similar onions, which will always be much cheaper than shallots.

But this just gives us another reason to grow our own shallots!

Though they are expensive in the store, their price tag only reflects their limited popularity.  They're actually quite easy to grow, similar to multipler onions and garlic in growing style, as shallots start as bulbs.

The best time to plant our shallot bulbs is in late spring or early fall.  Shallots can survive most winter conditions, so planting in the fall is not a problem at all, and you will be able to harvest them in the following summer if you do.

The bulbs should be planted about 6 inches apart, with the root side down and the point up.  The size of the bulb reflects the future size of your shallot plant, and also the speed of growth and amount of produced shallots.  So it's easy to plan from the start with shallots, even before planting.  If your bulbs are of different sizes and qualities, it will be relfected in your crop, and you need to plan ahead further in this situation, because it will be of different sizes and harvest dates.  So, if possible, it's best to get bulbs that are of fairly similar size and shape.

The roots of shallots are fairly shallow and weak, but they do quite well in most types of garden soil.  Watering does very with soil type, but you should keep your shallots well wet no matter what type of soil you have.  Heavy soils need more water per application, and light soils need less water per application, but also need to be watered more frequently. 

When summer comes around and its time for harvest, just remember to keep some of the bulbs for replanting in the fall so you don't have to worry about purchasing a new set of bulbs!

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