I grew a seedgrown shallot variety this year, but this year is my first time planting them from sets/cloves.
I got some Dutch Reds. Do you split these up like you do garlic into cloves? Some sources say to plant “whole bulbs“ and others say to split them up like garlic.
A lot of them are like the second one, but don’t even have a crack in the skin, they basically look like garlic and you can see the “lumps”, but it doesn’t appear that they have any of their own skin on them, so I’m not sure if I should separate them or not, unless they look like the one on top.
Have you ever planted a clove of garlic and then see two stalks pop up in the spring? That’s cause sometimes the skin is formed around two cloves, instead of each individual clove. If you don’t thin the double clove, the sum of the two will be smaller than thinning and letting a single clove grow to maturity. The same thing applies to shallots.
You determine if it needs to be split by looking at the basal plate (bottom), not the top. You should see if there is a seam (possibly incomplete) showing there are two bulbs.
I’d split up the ones that are obviously separated like in your first picture, and keep the rest as is. Shallots are supposed to grow as clumps, so there’s no real harm in erring on the side of lumped together. With shallots, you plant a mix of bulb sizes. The small ones give you big bulbs, and the big ones give you a supply of small bulbs (to beget large ones in the future).
Mulch is good, but you have to peel back the mulch so they can get through. Unlike garlic, they tend to get stuck under the mulch rather than be able to push through. Here in the north, I have better results holding the bulbs until spring and planting them then. Further south, fall planting is best. I’m not sure where the cutoff line is, but zone 6 and colder should probably spring plant. To be clear, they’ll survive the winter just fine, but they’re more likely to put up flower stalks and have mildew issues in storage.
@mamuang, some nurseries will sell shallot seedlings in with the onion seedlings. What I’ve usually seen is a rectangular pot with 100 or so small seedlings. They’re usually quite good, but I think they go to seed instead of multiplying if you replant the bulbs.
I was surprised to find them. A local Ace has a stand-alone garden center and they had them in with the onions, as @jcguarneri says. I think the nursery that grew them is a Montana company.
This is what I mean about the basal plate. This is garlic that I am about to plant, but it demonstrates what I mean. See the slight cleft in the bottom? Even though it’s a single wrapper, there are two cloves here. This would be how you would you would determine if you need to split. Other illustrations of different double clove formation for garlic.
I have only planted french grey shallots, so my experience with dutch reds is nonexistent. French greys form much more discrete bulbs, so double formations aren’t much of a worry.
I split the cloves in the first picture, kept them together in the second. Disclaimer-this is my first year of growing shallots too. I have dutch red, french gray, and Heritage Sweet White (Egyptian Walking Onion).
My shallots were looking sad, so I put leaf mulch around them after they were up. Only dutch red and heritage sweet white are up, french gray is not.
plant so that some of the top s exposed and mulch with straw max two inch for thumb sizes cloves. my wife plants shallots too deep and I have to remove soil around them in early summer to let them expand.
will do. I’ll leave the tip sticking out and then cover that with thin straw. thanks a bunch, it’s my first year starting them from cloves instead of seed (not great at that)
