[Mr Rotavator]

I have a number of marble sized shallots that are going to be very annoying and time consuming to prepare. Can I keep them to use as sets or am I wasting my ground and time with these?

Thanks in advance.

[Trillium]

I'm saving all my smaller shallots as 'seed' for next year.

[SUTTY1]

I've saved some of mine in the past to use next year, with good success.
Been a lot of white rot on our site this year  so i've just pickled what wont get eaten.

[arugula]

Yes you can and in fact probably should do it this way. Have a look at the first post in this recent thread:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=80632.msg903006#msg903006

[Growster...]

I wonder if the 'children' get tired out after a few years.

This year, all last year's savings did virtually nothing, but it has been a very poor year for spring planted onions and shallots here, mainly due to the drought.

We will be keeping what's left of some new stock, but not relying on them as the main providers.

Of course, this time next year, I'll have been proved totally wrong, and we'll be inundated...

[Mr Rotavator]

Ooops - got the correct thread this time.

Will be keeping them back for planting reading your replies 

Thanks again.

[fatbelly]

Oh Poo,

I have saved my largest Shallot bulbs to reuse as seed and have been using my smaller ones in the kitchen.

Have I got this wrong?

[DD.]

Yes.

On the other hand, no.

Maybe.

I think the jury may be out.

I buy fresh every year as I can get them loose locally quite cheaply and hand select the ones I want. I sit on the fence and go for the mid sized bulbs as they cost less than the big ones which my head is telling me to go for!

[arugula]

My post in the other linky I gave was based on internet research , so from the harvest we've kept back the smallest for replanting, but we'll buy again too.

[Mr Rotavator]

I think the plan will be - buy some new sets to plant with the kept ones and plant all in order of size. I love a bit of scienctific research 

[arugula]

Good idea.

[sunshineband]

I'm on year 3 with home saved sets, and use the smallest ones.

So far they have done me proud 

I plant a couple of bigger ones, which have split into small ones that I can keep for the next year.

Watered abot three or four times with a good soak during that really really dry spell earlier in the year but other than that they jsut get on with it.

Harvested them last weekend 

[Trillium]

Fatbelly, it's usually largest garlic cloves that most of us keep for planting, but smaller shallot cloves for planting. That's probably what tricked you 

I'm fortunate to not have any onion diseases in my area so I keep my selected garlic cloves for planting. If I can find the purple type (and finding garlic here in fall is nigh on impossible) I'll buy a few for planting as well.

For shallots, I bought some loose and packaged for early indoor starting, as well as a variety of shallot seeds. The seeds must be started in December to reach useable size by end of July. Now I'm saving some smaller shallots to plant on next season as well as more shallot seeds. I like the variety I can get from seeds since our suppliers give us only  1 variety of bulb.