I’ve been farming professionally for 11 years and gardening my whole life (I’m almost 40) and I’ve never grown shallots. That is, until this year. Most years, we try out a new crop or two and after 11 years and all the things I’ve grown throughout my life the list of things we don’t grow that people ask about is getting small. Shallots were the one thing we still routinely get asked about and so we finally gave them a try this year. Here’s how we tackled this new to us crop.

They’re so pretty! Good size on them too.

We ordered shallot sets from the nearby Albert Lea Seed House. Sets is the term used to describe very small bulbs of shallots (or onions) intended to be planted and grown. I saw a lot of conflicting information about whether to grow plants or sets. We chose to grow sets because we didn’t have the greenhouse space and I couldn’t find a supplier that would mail live plants as we do with our onions. I also saw conflicting information about whether to plant in the spring or fall and mulch them like garlic. Since I decided to plant them over the winter my hand was forced there.

We kept up with the weeds as we try to do with all our other crops and almost 3 months later we’re nearing our first shallot harvest. The advice we saw online says to treat them as we do storage onions: when the tops fall over it’s time to harvest and cure them. Curing simply means allowing the outer skin to dry down and form a protective layer allowing for a much longer shelf life.

We’ll plan to harvest these shallots in the next week or so and after around 2 weeks of curing our very first shallot crop will be ready for you!

Shallots: A New-To-Us Crop

The Tomato Tunnel