Hi all
Just about to start on this years shallots and i want to go through them 1st to keep some for seed for next year, so what is the best size to keep back ??
Sounds like a silly question i know but the price of shallots just keeps going up and up so i thought i would give this a go or grow from seed.
Many thanks all
Steve
I had such good results this year growing Prisma and Banana from seed I can't imagine I'll ever grow from bulbs again.... but if I was I'd want biggish ones, hens-egg size if possible
Big ones to keep for seed. :blob7:
Sow small bulbs for less but larger shallots
Sow large bulbs for more but smaller shallots.
Thank you,
Steve
Actually I had a thought on the bus on the way into work... Sow big bulbs between now and Christmas to get proper "heads " of shallots next summer, sow smaller bulbs in March/April to get individual big bulbs.... also works for elephant and some other garlics too... Most garlic and pretty much all shallots need some cold to persuade them to split lots.... though you will find the odd multiple bulb even from sown seed so YMMV...
Thanks for starting this interesting thread Steve . :angel11: So which is the best shallot to plant in the Autumn ? And the best for Spring ? please .
Quote from: woodypecks on November 12, 2012, 09:26:15
Thanks for starting this interesting thread Steve . :angel11: So which is the best shallot to plant in the Autumn ? And the best for Spring ? please .
Well, I don't put any shallots in over the winter. I put all mine into compost for the winter and them plant them out in the spring - or just plant them out in the spring.
Same with potato onions, either compost in the winter and plant out or straight out in the spring.
Shallots by seed, sow on or after the Winter Solstice. Plant out in the spring. :sunny:
Quote from: aj on November 12, 2012, 07:28:42
Big ones to keep for seed. :blob7:
Sow small bulbs for less but larger shallots
Sow large bulbs for more but smaller shallots.
I find that system (same as chrisscross1966) works a dream for garlic but I've used 3 different kinds of shallot over 20 years and every one has ended up producing smaller 'children' than the parent bulb - irrespective of mollycoddling (it might be a temperature thing, but gardening in London I assume I get less 'splitting signals' than most).
I hate tiny fiddly bulbs so I'm sticking with seed - 'banana' and similar long ones are good, easy to strip/slice and you can get a good crop of seed on top of a medium yield from the flowers you don't remove.
Cheers.
Plant the best, eat the rest.
Is it a good idea to plant shallots I got from Asda?
I dont want to introduce any nasties to my soil :icon_spiderman: :icon_spiderman:
:icon_flower: :icon_flower:
I am with Paul W
I find your question a bit misleading I guess you mean you want to know what size of shallots ( not seed) to save, hence my answer.
Variety also comes into it when considering size, as some are naturally long, some round and some pear shaped.
The size I like to plant are " show bench size" in fact I like to attend after show auctions when the grower puts up his exhibits for sale and I bid to buy them, which is just as Paul says "plant the best" you can get!
I have tried growing from seed once but find that they do not bunch up in their first year,and they are not not much better in their second year.
Perhaps if I grew them on longer by selection then I might eventually get similar results to purchased setts!
After all the setts we buy must have come this route at some time.
The choice is yours!
Caroline regarding Asda stock!
In many ways I see this as similar to saving your own, and I would imagine that Asda have obtained their stock from reliable growers.
But what you don't know is how they have been treated since they were harvested, they may have been cold stored, or kept in relatively warm conditions or both which might encourage bolting.
Then they might be foreign grown and are not suited to the fickle British weather.
So in the end the choice is yours.
What I tend to do when trying something like this is experiment with about twenty percent of my total and grow in the traditional we'll tested methods for the remaining eighty percent.
In other words I don't put all my eggs in the one basket!
Thanks Tee Gee :toothy10:
I'll get a few to pop in and see how they do this year :icon_flower: :icon_flower:
Quote from: carolinej on December 30, 2012, 21:31:29
Is it a good idea to plant shallots I got from Asda?
I dont want to introduce any nasties to my soil :icon_spiderman: :icon_spiderman:
:icon_flower: :icon_flower:
The ordinary kind are probably OK, but if the shallots are the long 'banana' ones then they have a bad rep. - half seem to just die and the rest tend to just split in two.
I suspect a lot of them are grown from seed... Certainly this is exactly what happens if you try to grow on your bulbs from last year's seed.
There probably are 'true' shallots that look the same - but why would a farmer plant one shallot when he can get the same yield from planting 10 seeds? (at a few percent of the cost) - and probably less white rot too.
This is why I use seeds - and no, Tee Gee - nobody expects a cluster or bunch from a seed - you just get one nice usable bulb from each seed and accept that you eat them all so you will be planting seeds every year.
Cheers.
Thanks :toothy10:
No banana' s here :happy3: (where are the banana smileys when you need one!?)
:icon_flower: :icon_flower: