When do you harvest your shallots?

[Millymollymandy]

Another veg I haven't grown before! Mine have all flopped outwards and the skins are starting to go brown and the stems starting to die off - but very irritating because they're lying on the ground meaning I keep treading on them!

I spent ages googling to see when you harvest and the best I could find was about August - in the UK. Is it normal that they need a longer growing season than onions grown from set? I sowed the sets a month earlier than my onions in early March and I normally harvest onions in July.

[grahamhobbs]

MMM, in London my shallots are almost ready to pick, the leaves have pretty much died off but the skins haven't browned yet. probably ready to lift in 2 weeks, this is would be 2 weeks earlier than normal, but it has been very dry this year.

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks Graham. I did try one a few weeks ago and it was amazingly hot but without any noticeable oniony taste. Will leave them for a bit longer.

[Odsox]

When they're ready ..

They are another one of those "plant on the shortest day and harvest on the longest day" veggies, but if the leaves are still green then leave it until they are brown and dead (even though the shortest day was last Monday and it's all downhill to winter now)
They will come to no harm if you leave them in the ground for another month or more.

[Millymollymandy]

The leaves are still green but browning at the tips just they are flopped out lying on the ground which is a nuisance. Do I carry on watering them or just leave them to dry out now?

I guess my garlic should be about ready as that was sown last year unlike the shallots.

[Odsox]

No don't water them any more and they will then ripen up in your blazing hot sun.
That way they will keep until next year.

[Millymollymandy]

Cheers Tony - and the blasted sun is set to continue for another week, gasp!

[Millymollymandy]

I have lifted them and I'm dead chuffed that I've got so many from such a small amount of space they take up growing, compared to onions and seem to be more at home with dry soil than the onions which are tiny and pathetic this year.

They taste nice and onioney now but are so hot - Phew! - just like spring onions. Wonderful!

However the soil under where they were growing was so dry that I dug down a foot whilst making a hole to plant something else without finding any moisture whatsoever. Yet the uncultivated parts of my veg patch have reasonably moist soil under the top inch or two of dust. Just goes to show how much moisture plants take up.