Shallots originally come from French cuisine. Like all onions, they belong to the allium family, but have a milder taste than conventional onions and are becoming increasingly popular with us. Garden owners can successfully grow shallots themselves without much effort.
How to grow shallots successfully?
To grow shallots, first choose your preferred variety and plant the seed onions after the ice saints in nutrient-rich, sandy and well-drained soil, in a sunny, warm location. Ensure adequate watering and harvest the shallots as soon as the onion greens wilt.
How to plant the shallot?
If you want to grow shallots in the garden or in the flower box on the balcony, you first have to choose your favorite variety. There are three types of shallots:
- The Jersey shallot is elongated and has a pink color
- The gray shallot is also elongated, relatively small and has a gray color
- The yellow shallot is round and resembles the normal onion
Everyone needs a sheltered, warm place with as much sun as possible. The soil should be nutrient-rich, humus-rich and slightly sandy. An important criterion for the soil is good permeability. Shallots do not tolerate waterlogging. If the soil is too wet, they begin to rot quickly.
After the ice saints, the seed onions are sown in rows and buried approximately five centimeters deep in the soil. The rows should be about 25 cm apart, 15 cm between each bulb is ideal.
Care and harvest
Shallots, like normal onions, are relatively easy to care for. To ensure that they develop well, a long-term fertilizer, such as horn shavings (€32.00 on Amazon), can be sprinkled around the onions when sowing. No further fertilization is necessary. However, the shallots always need enough water until they are harvested in July. If there is no water, the onions remain small. The right time for harvesting has come when the green onions begin to wilt. You take the onions out of the ground, tie several of them together in a bunch and then hang them in an airy place so that the onions can dry out well.
