Any plant that doesn’t need my help to stay alive is welcome in my garden! These shallots were given to me by a good friend shortly after we moved in last year, we put them in the ground, then had a pretty good drought. I was sure they, along with everything else we had planted, were gone. But lo and behold, after several months of neglect, when I went to revive my fence line bed, there they were!
We love harvesting the greens to add to soups, soft cheeses, butter, or eggs. Shallots are typically planted in the fall, they come to maturity early summer for harvest. They are a member of the onion family, and can be used interchangeably with onions in your recipes, and the greens used where you would use green onion or chives.
I hope to have them growing in perpetuity, as shallots reproduce a lot like garlic, with a mother bulb that divides into multiple bulbs, but the offspring bulbs are not encased in the papery husk that garlic has. I’ll be saving part of the harvest to plant next year.