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Shallots are In! …I Mean Out!

July 27, 2010

I don’t know how I’ll ever use them all, but roughly calculating along the lines of grocery store prices, I could probably sell them and pay for my daughter’s college. Or better yet, something fun for my office.

Seriously. Why are shallots so damn expensive? They are an onion, for Pete’s sake!

Anyway, it has been years since I planted shallots. I remember getting ticked off trying to peel the paper thin skins and thinking, “never planting these again.” But that was before I started cooking so much. I bet I substitute onions for shallots more than anything else when following recipes. So now — provided they last in my lame root cellar lower garage, I should have enough to last me more than a year.

Successful shallot/onion/garlic storage is all about how you “cure” the bulbs. This is how NOT to do it:

how not to cure your shallots

By the way, if you’ve been following along (and I only just remembered this now), I forgot to plant these last fall and was worried they wouldn’t grow. Obviously, I was wrong. They are just fine. And given the price of the shallot sets you buy to plant, it might be worth not risking a Fall planting here in Minnesota, since harsh winters with little snow cover will kill Fall planted garlic and shallots.

For the record, I have tried planting garlic in the spring, after just that type of cataclysmic winter and it did not work. So the same can not be said for garlic. At least not for me, anyway.

Here is the progression. Hover over the photo to see the date:

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure when to harvest. And given the frenetic nature of the past two months, I wasn’t inclined to research it, either. I decided to treat them like onions and garlic and wait until the stems were mostly flopping over and 50% or more brownish. It might have been a little long… Oh I don’t know…

What I DO know is that patch looked horrible and needed to be weeded. And low and behold the ground was also dry. In fact, I was just about to turn the sprinkler on for the first time all summer when I realized I didn’t want the shallots to get wet, so I dug them all up and set them out nicely to dry.

About six hours later, the big hailstorm started (video of the end of the storm is above in green “how not to cure shallots”). I took this picture when it was safe to go outside. I think this guy had melted by about 40% or so.

It wasn’t until the end of the storm that I realized that the shallots were not only in the rain, but under the overhang of the roof getting completely pummeled. At least they were now clean:

I’d like to say that was the last time they were rained on, but I would be lying. They were rained on, in approximately the same spot, two more times. I have no idea how that will affect their storage, but I will keep you posted.

This was the beautiful site after the big storm that destroyed farm fields, roofs, shattered windows and cleaned my shallots:

And that’s really what it looked like. The white balance on my camera was perfect. It was beautiful.

Our driveway, however, was not:

Filed Under: Garden Tagged With: shallots, plant, cure, hail, storm, rainbow, harvest

How Not to Plant Shallots

March 20, 2010

Ignore that picture, as there is nothing wrong with it.

What I should have done is take a picture of the date next to the cute little rows off pointy-headed bulbs. Because that would be more appropriate with the title of this post.

You see, I am approximately 4.5 months late planting my shallots. I know that I have mentioned my ‘to-do list’ strategy, right? The one where I keep a running list of what I need to do in the next day or two? I’ll go a step further. This is the actual list:

Followed by excerpts from the next two months of lists:

…where you will note that an empty circle is an unfinished task. As we progress from October to December — when the ground is frozen solid — I finally gave up and scratched “Plant Shallots” out and off the list forever. Until I rediscovered the bag of bulbs in the garage yesterday…

Funny, though, as I look back on these lists, the other things I have forgotten to do… A client’s thing… My Mom’s photo mug… Another client thing… And that damn Greenhouse Motor. Which you will be happy to know that I finally figured out how to detach, pack up and send off for repair. I finally crossed it off my list.

Yesterday.

On 3/17/2010.

A full five months and ten days after it was first written down on 10/7/2009 (see above).

So anyway, the shallots. The truth is, I simply didn’t get them in the ground before it froze last fall. Then I rationalized that, since the directions that came on the package said, “Plant shallots in the ground immediately upon delivery in all but the coldest northern regions.”

That’s not that far of a stretch, is it? We’re pretty damn cold and pretty far north. Still, I think given that we plant garlic in the fall, the shallots should have gone into the ground with them.

So I planted them yesterday. Which is not the correct way, but I’m crossing my fingers that 1) the bulbs are still viable, and 2) the bulbs will grow. We shall wait and we shall see. They will be in for plenty of wild weather, but they would have gotten that if they went in the ground last fall, too.

Now: do you think I should gamble and plant these, since I decided not to cook them and serve them to Dave?

I think I should. Please chime in.

Filed Under: Garden Tagged With: zone 4, garden, how to, Minnesota, how not to, shallots, plant

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Jen menke

I’m a mostly-retired, pretend graphics and web developer (but don’t judge my skillz by THIS site!). We sold our dream home in Watertown, MN and downsized to a “Villa” in Excelsior, MN and built a home in our dream location of Eagle, CO and now split our time between the two states. It is truly a dichotomous life of absentee gardening and getting together with friends & family while in MN and playing hard and hermitting while in CO. I’ve let the blog go but a trip to Alaska has me resurrecting the Road Warriors series. My beloved brother is my biggest fan and I am doing this just for him.

Latest Reads:

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