Monday, May 10, 2010

Shallots ZOMGosh!

Okay, remember when I posted about trying to discern how to grow shallots etc? Remember how I wrote the ones I planted had divided and grown and had gone to seed and looked like suns on stalks? I learned THEN that allowing the seedstalk to grow on an onion was frowned upon because that would grow thru the center and basically ruin the onion altogether.

However.... it was too late for my shallots and so I just let the bees go nuts buzzing on the suns and I enjoyed looking at their happy faces when I was out there pottering around. Until this morning.

It's a splendid morning here in SE LA and I decided that today I would dig out old growth and get ready to plant sunflowers out there in the raised beds. So I tackled the broccoli first and moved over to the kale, leaving the shallots for last.

I broke off the stalks from the first bunch of four and dug the rootball up..... I looked at it and thought, huh...?! I dug the next bunch, leaving the suns on the stalks and the third and four...... That's interesting.... it looks like ...... are those shallot thumbs? I thought the seed stalk rendered the onion useless? So I pulled the three complete bunches over and have let them set out in the sun to cure a little and I rinsed off the first bunch to really look at it. It appears as though almost every sunstalk has a "toe' of shallot attached to it and I have rinsed them well and separated the stalk from the toe. I will try cooking with it tonight.

I very well may have accidentally learned how to grow shallots in the south.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

YEAH accidentally doing something right when you're pretty sure you messed it up is my second favorite accidental success (a close second to stumbling across something i really love but lost and was sure was gone forever). <--that grammar needs an editor.