[savbo]

Hi all - of the small crop of shallots we have this year, about a quarter are too small to bother peeling... what do people think about keeping them to use next year? Or am I asking for disease problems?

M

[maxie]

Ive kept a few back myself before with no problems.
But would small shallots not lead to a small crop??

[strangerachael]

I tried this using shallots which were  roughly pickled onion sized - the results are half reasonable, half disappointing. This year I will use the small ones for pickling, and get some new sets for next year. Will try keeping some decent sized ones for re-planting.

[SnooziSuzi]

If I can remember what the variety of shallots I have planted this year I'll re-post but the one's I've put in are HUGE!!  and add to that the fact that I'm getting 6 or 7 bulbs per cluster I'm not going to run out for a long long time!

Will post a piccie when I come back from lottie

[DD.]

I planted 2 different varieties. One's average, one's cracking.

You can guess my problem here!

[savbo]

the shallots we planted were Red something I think - from that top-class horticultural retailer B&M! we planted them mostly for spring onions but got a reasonable crop of shallots too...

M

[Swing Swang]

Small seed potatoes don't lead to small harvest potatoes, so certainly worth planting the small ones, although my guess is that bigger ones will do better. As they 'split' you're not selecting inferior genetic stock for the following year, so if the growing conditions are right then they shoud do OK, providing they're big enough to get going in the first place, and let's face it some of our onion sets are pretty small and they do OK (but of course we only want one onion from a set, whereas with shallots we're after a large cluster). People keep shallots going for years, which of course you can't do with spuds.

SS

[DD.]

People keep shallots going for years, which of course you can't do with spuds.

SS

To be pedantic, you can, but shouldn't!

[matron]

We have used good old Wilkos shallots and they are HUGE with 6 - 7 shallots per set 
We could be having shallots with everything though as we still have some pickled ones left over from last year. 

[8doubles]

People keep shallots going for years, which of course you can't do with spuds.

SS

To be pedantic, you can, but shouldn't!

SShhhhhhsssshh..................my pink fir apples don`t know that , had `em for years.

[Salmo]

I would certainly plant the small shallots. If you plant small shallots it is likely that they will only split into 3 or 4 which will grow large. If you plant large shallots they will split into many and produce picklers but with a few large ones aswell.

[zazen999]

I also thought
small shallots = few big shallots
big shallots = many small shallots

The big/small gene recedes every other year....