My onions and shallots are doing very well, especially as its my first
attempt, but when can I expect them to be ready to use and how will I know.
Also my wife wants to know if she can use the shallots as a salad "onion"
while they are young .

My onions and shallots are doing very well, especially as its my first
attempt, but when can I expect them to be ready to use and how will I
know.
Also my wife wants to know if she can use the shallots as a salad "onion"
while they are young .

You can eat onions / shallots at any stage, you don't need to wait until
they are "ripe". Pull one up and try it for taste. If you pull onions before
they are ripe you can also use the tops in stir fries etc. Personally I put
a few Japanese onions in each Autumn - these mature a few weeks earlier than
spring sewn sets and I pull these before they are fully ripe just so we've
got fresh onion available in the kitchen without needing to buy them.
The tops will start to die down when onions are fully mature later in the
year. When this happens pull them up on a dry day and leave them for a few
hours outdoors to dry off then keep them in a cool dry place over Winter.
Take care not to bash them or they may bruise and not keep very well. I
keep mine hanging up in string bags in the garage - the sort you get free
when you buy bags of daffodils etc. If you are clever you can also plait the
tops and hang them that way, or simply hang them in bunches by tying the
tops together.
--
Drakanthus.


(Spam filter: Include the word VB anywhere in the subject line or emails
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"miklol" wrote in message
My onions and shallots are doing very well, especially as its my first
attempt, but when can I expect them to be ready to use and how will I
know.
Also my wife wants to know if she can use the shallots as a salad "onion"
while they are young .


They will both be ready when the tops turn brown and die. About end
July/August. You can use the onions from when you think they are big enough
but the shallots grow by splitting into many separate bulbs (up to 16 I've
had), so if you pull up a bulb you will lose the extra crop which is a bit
of a waste.
Shallots keep better than onions in our experience.

--
Bob

www.pooleygreengrowers.org.uk/ about an Allotment site in
Runnymede fighting for it's existence.

Companion planting.

Always plant one petunia in each bed of onions.

The onions like it because it reminds them of the song.

Lepslie top poster extraordinaire.


"miklol" wrote in message
...
My onions and shallots are doing very well, especially as its my first
attempt, but when can I expect them to be ready to use and how will I
know.
Also my wife wants to know if she can use the shallots as a salad "onion"
while they are young .