Many years ago in Houston, Texas, we grew something called "multiplying
onions" for salad use. Pull up a small bunch of them for a meal, break
one off and stick it back in the hole. They never went dormant, never
bloomed, never really bulbed, just kept dividing. And they *really*
liked the gumbo clay soil where my grandparents lived, but they also
grew okay in the acid sandy soil at my parents house in the pines.

They had a little different (richer) taste than green onions, and I now
recognize it as shallots. I've been looking for them for years; even
drove by the house where my grandparents lived 40 years ago to see if
there were still some there. I'm pretty sure now they were a shallot
variety "Louisiana Evergreen", which is a sterile triploid or something.

No idea if "Louisiana Evergreen" shallots are still available, or if
they will grow up here in the frozen north.

To answer the original question, I grew some shallots from seeds this
year, but I planted them too late and the weeds overtook them. I will
dig them up this weekend and see what I got. Next year I will plant
shallot bulbs from the Oriental market (they are cheap there)

Bob