How to grow shallots, and which kind you actually mean

Before anything else, the word. In Australia, shallots means two completely different plants depending on who is saying it, and they are grown in two completely different ways, so half the confusion people have with this crop is really a confusion about which one they bought.

Ask for shallots in most of the country and you get the long green bunching onion, the same thing plenty of people call a spring onion, grown from seed and cut as you want it. Ask a chef or read an English cookbook and a shallot is the small brown bulb that grows in a cluster, planted as a bulb and lifted and dried at the end of the season. Both are worth growing and neither is the wrong answer, so work out which one you are after first.

The bunching kind, which is the easy one

These are grown from seed and they are about as forgiving as a vegetable gets. Sow direct, roughly 10mm deep, thin them to about 50mm apart, and start cutting once they are pencil thick.

You can sow them nearly all year in this district, with autumn and spring the easiest windows, and a short row every 6 weeks keeps a steady supply going rather than giving you 40 of them at once. If you cut the green tops and leave the white base in the ground, most of them will shoot again and give you a second cut.

They want steady moisture and a sunny spot, and that is genuinely the whole method.

The bulb kind, which takes a season

True shallots grow from a single bulb that splits into a cluster of them over the season, so you plant one and lift six. They are planted as bulbs rather than sown as seed, and we do not carry the bulbs, so that is one to source elsewhere or to save from a previous crop.

They go in over autumn and into early winter, pushed into the soil so the tip is just showing and spaced about 150mm apart, and they come out in late spring or early summer. If you get a good crop, keep back the best half dozen bulbs and you never have to buy them again.

The bed, for either of them

Alliums want sun, drainage and a soil that does not stay wet, so on heavy clay a raised bed or a large pot will do more for the crop than anything you add to the ground will.

Dig compost or well aged manure through beforehand rather than at planting, because fresh manure against the bulbs causes rot. Go easy on nitrogen once they are up, since a heavy nitrogen feed gives you a magnificent green top and a small bulb, and potassium is what you want at the bulking stage.

Watering, and the bit the old version got wrong

Watering sparingly all the way through is the common advice and it costs you the crop. Alliums are shallow rooted and they need steady moisture while the bulbs are swelling, which for the bulb kind is the middle stretch of the season.

What changes is the end. Once the tops start to yellow and fall over, stop watering altogether and let the bed dry out, because that is what sets the skins and lets them store. Water on a bulb that is trying to cure is how you get rot in the shed in August.

Mulch, weeds and one small warning

A layer of straw or sugar cane mulch keeps the moisture even and keeps the soil off the bulbs. Alliums have very little leaf to shade the ground with, so a bed left bare will grow weeds faster than the crop grows, and they compete badly because their roots are shallow.

Weed by hand rather than with a hoe anywhere near them, since a hoe run through an allium bed cuts the surface roots and the plants sulk for a fortnight afterwards.

Lifting and storing the bulb kind

When most of the tops have gone over, lift the clusters on a fork rather than pulling them by the tops, and lay them somewhere warm, dry and out of the sun with plenty of air moving for 2 to 3 weeks. A wire rack or a few slats in a shed is ideal.

Once the skins are papery and the necks are dry, trim the tops back and store them somewhere cool and dark. They will keep for months, which is more than can be said for most things you grow.

I have had a go at both kinds and the bunching ones are the ones that keep turning up in the kitchen, mostly because they need so little from me. Start there if you are choosing.

Shop related products

• D.T. Brown Spring Onion, 650 seed pack. The bunching kind, sown direct.
• Brunnings Garden Compost with Seaweed 25L. Dig it through well before planting.
• Brunnings Potash Power 2.5kg. Potassium for bulking, without pushing leafy growth.
• Easy Wetta Garden Mulch, 50L. Keeps the moisture even and the weeds down.
• Brunnings All Purpose NPK Fertiliser 500g. A light balanced feed early in the season.

Did you know we also stock loose allium seed over the counter at $2.75 a packet, in Longwhite Bunching shallot, spring onion, Gladalan White, Hunter River Brown and Californian Red onion, along with bales of pea straw and sugar cane for mulching. None of that is on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.

The seed, the compost and the mulch are in the garden centre, and the packets are in the D.T. Brown seed range.

Keep reading

• How to grow snow peas, and when to sow them here
• How to grow vegetables in the South Australian climate

Follow our Facebook page: Strathalbyn H Hardware