Curing Shallots?
mauirose
14 years ago
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whgille
14 years agopromethean_spark
14 years agoRelated Discussions
curing shallots
Comments (1)1. They will tell you. Mine here are ~3 weeks. You might get a week if you let them cook in the sun, but I personally wouldn't do it in our powerful sunshine. 2. I don't. Just like garlic for me. 3. Dunno. 4. Ours never last that long as we eat them, but I get ~6 mo here and they're gone, esp in the winter cooking where it is a key ingredient. 5. We get very dry here and ours dry out. Dan...See MoreTemporaily Move Shallots, Onions, Garlic
Comments (5)Thanks for the information. Can alliums that have not started to die back be pulled and successfully cured now or is the water content just too high at this point? I started transplanting last evening from my ancillary beds. I made it through the shallots getting all the dirt I could. I know I lost a few plants as I did not dig deep enough to get all the roots. I will take extra care to protect the roots from sunlight. Details on specific varieties at end of post. Since transplanting will set them back so much, I will cover them with a shade cloth and make sure to irrigate and give them extra attention to help them recover. With the multiplying onions and shallots I am not so concerned with getting a edible harvest as much as getting enough to replant for the fall for next year. I have sort of written this year off for eating from the garden until after all the work is done in the backyard. Alliums always seem to fade here in July. I know it is related to the day length, but in the years of drought the harvest always seems to come a few weeks earlier (last year a full month) and if it rains I seem to get an extra week or two so hopefully the extra protection will allow the transplants to recover somewhat. I pulled a few of the smallest garlic plants and the cloves are of a usable size. I am thinking about culling the smallest plants which usually have the smallest heads and curing them. That would bring me down to about 140 heads of garlic to transplant and at least twelve of each variety. Even with a high transplant failure rate I should have enough to replant and the culls should provide garlic for the next year. The Prince de Bretagne Shallots are doing so poorly (very little top or bottom growth) in my first year growing them that I am confident I got all the roots of about a dozen plants. The Griselle Shallots had a larger root system and I had to make a decision for a few plants on which one to disturb the roots of. The bulb size is actually decent on the disturbed plants and if I could cure them so they would last to the fall planting the size would be similar to the size shallots that were planted. The Frog's Leg Shallots (Red) were monsters when I planted them. A few of these are likely lost as the roots seem to run very deep. These seem to be dividing very nicely with each planted shallot being 6 or more small sized shallots. Several clumps had soft rot so hopefully the rest will survive. I will keep these in pots even afterwards as I do not want to introduce a rot disease into the new garden. These will continue to be isolated for another year. Today I hope to tackle Winter Onions. Only the best clump as a few have started topsetting and I should be able to use those to get the bed reestablished. Also I hope to transplant some potato onions into a stack of spare plastic nursery pots using the same procedure as the shallots. And finally move the best two babbington leeks. These have done poorly for me so far, but better each year. I want to keep a couple around for another year or two to see if the pattern continues or at some point their performance levels off....See MoreWhere to cure...
Comments (4)You do have a problem. First, do not dry them in the sun for any period. They will start to cook. I would suggest that you pick up one of these wooden, folding, laundry racks made for indoor drying. They do not take up much room. Harvest garlic, tie into bunches of eight or so and hang them from a rack. Place the rack in a room where you can open windows and/or place a fan. I am certain that there are more innovative ideas out there but this might be one simple solution. Good luck....See MoreCuring Shallots.
Comments (1)I don't pull my shallots until the plants look pretty crummy, then dry them whole in warm shade for about a week. Then I trim them and rub off dirt, let cure for another week in dry shade, then bring them indoors and let them sit at room temperatures for two weeks. Then they go into the basement. We eat em from Jan to April, long after the bulb onions are gone....See Moreplanatus
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