Overwintering shallots as spring onions

[Jesse]

When I first got my allotment my neighbour gave me some "sets" to plant in the autumn, he said that they'd grow and produce onions for picking as spring onions in the spring. They grew as he said they would and produced some very tasty spring onions, each "set" produced a handful of salad onions, perhaps about 6 or 8 onions to the set growing in a bunch. I asked him what they were and he said they were shallots but didn't know the variety. If I plant any kind of shallot set in the autumn will they grow in this manner or was this a special type of shallot set? They overwintered very well with no protection at all.

[Jesse]

[growmore]

I would imagine they would ..Spring onions sown in sept do. So do onion sets ..SO why not shallots .?..What do others think ?..Cheers Jim

[jennym]

Agree with Jim on this one, its handy to sow many of this family back end of the year, almost guaranteed to give some spring pickings (my favourite is garlic picked about now). Had a fair bit of success with Ishikura spring/bunching onions, which I sowed frequently from early autumn and will pick the last of over the next few days.

[Jesse]

Thanks, I'll try planting some of the shallots that I harvest later in the year and see what happens. I also have some Ishikura seeds that I'll plant for overwintering, would they need protection at all?

[jennym]

I didn't protect my Ishikura, but they were sown in a small area near to a fruit cage and some trained low fruit trees. The soil is heavy clay, but improved in that area with kitchen compost, and also that area did have some sand dug into it in the early days, so is pretty well drained. Hope this helps.

[Jesse]

thanks jennym, I have plenty of cloches so might protect them just to be on the safe side. :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

My shallots went in in early December, and came through the cold weather quite happily.

[djbrenton]

Some of our older gardeners are amazed that we don't get shallots into the lottie shop till February as they were always considered an Autumn planter. They're generally pretty hardy.
My Ishikura are still in from my first sowing last year. I was experimenting to see why they are called 'bunching' onions and have come to the conclusion it's how they are sold in shops not how they develop. I had wondered if they bunched like scallions if left over winter but they've just turned into leeks.

[Jesse]

dj that's probably what I'm trying to find, scallions! Do they grow in a bunching habit? Whatever it was that I grew it was planted as a set (but I don't mind starting from seed), it sat in the ground through winter and in spring developed into what looked like little bunches of spring onions growing in clumps.