Growing shallots: what and how to do
Growing shallots is a simple procedure that even a novice summer resident can handle. To collect an incredibly healthy and tasty vegetable on your site, you just need to follow the rules of care.
The difference between shallots and onions
Shallots contain the following useful components:
- vitamin PP;
- vitamins B1, B2;
- salt;
- carotene.
Outwardly, shallots are slightly smaller in size than onions. Its leaves are narrow, fleshy, subulate. In an adult plant, their length is about 30 cm. The shallots are dark green with a slightly noticeable waxy dust.
On each bush of shallots there are 8-10 leaves.
As for the fruits themselves, they can be round, oval, flat. But, due to the very dense planting, the bulbs can take on an irregular shape.
In a dry vegetable, the scales are painted in bronze, yellow, yellow-brown, purple-gray, pink, purple shades. Juicy bulbs have white scales, less often light purple or green.
Each fruit grows in diameter from 2 to 4 cm. Peduncles reach about 80 cm. Compared to onions in shallots, they have no voids. The inflorescence of the onion, like that of the usual, has the appearance of a spherical umbrella. The length of the pedicels exceeds the length of the buds by 4 cm. The petals can be green, white or pink. The seeds of a shallot are much smaller than those of a regular one.
Planting in autumn
Traditionally, onions are planted in the ground in spring, but for shallots there is an option for autumn planting. The procedure should be carried out in the middle of autumn, and it is very important to achieve its rooting. The onions should be rooted in the ground, but not start to release fresh feathers, so the plant is more likely to survive the cold and continue to grow in the spring.
You need to deepen the planting material into the ground by 3 cm, after which it follows mulch soil with peat. It will allow the onion to survive the cold.
Shallots are a fairly cold-resistant plant, and do not die even when the air temperature drops to -20 ° C. After freezing, it is able to revive and grow further. But planting it in the fall is still better in the southern regions, where it is not so cold in winter.
When planting onions in the fall in the middle climatic zone, one should expect the loss of half of the seedlings. Small plants are more likely to survive than larger plants. Despite such problems, the fall planting still has several advantages. The most important among them is that after wintering onions form more leaves than planted in spring. Therefore, as soon as the snow melts, the autumn shallots will begin to grow actively and you can count on the early collection of the first greens.
Planting in spring
For this plant, frost is not terrible. Planting shallots in the spring can be done as soon as the snow leaves and the soil melts. April is a great month for this procedure.
If everything is done correctly, then the onion will receive a sufficient amount of thawed moisture, and the period of active growth will coincide with the longest daylight hours.Onions are often planted for the purpose of only collecting greens, and if this is for you, then create a distance between fruits of 8-10 cm, and between rows - 18-21 cm.
Before planting shallots in the spring, you need to select the planting material. The fruits should weigh about 10 g, and their diameter should not exceed 2-3 cm.
Observing these numbers, you can take every third bush to collect greens, and leave the rest for the formation of fruits. If it is planned to collect only the bulbs themselves, then planting is carried out less often: there should be a distance of 15 to 17 cm between the bushes. For large planting material, it is also recommended to increase the gaps so that the plants have space and space for the development of the root system. You need to bury the bulbs in the ground no more than 5 cm.
Seed propagation
When planning to grow shallots in a summer cottage, you should resort to the method of plant propagation by seeds. The disembarkation process in this case will be slightly different. In the ground, grooves are made up to 3 cm deep, into which the seeds are laid. For their quick germination, the grains are preliminarily kept in wet gauze. The grooves must be covered with peat or organic fertilizers.
Growing onions from seeds is significantly inferior to the vegetative method of reproduction, because shallot grains often ripen and germinate poorly.
Growing and caring for shallots
It is required to know certain rules for growing shallots. In particular, this is the correct tillage, fertilization and watering.
Earthworks and irrigation
With the arrival of stable heat, the onions should be watered after about two days, but if the weather becomes rather dry and hot, the number of procedures can be increased. From the middle of summer watering should be gradually reduced and stopped altogether 15 days before harvest.
As a general rule, you need to water the onions as needed. Before you start watering, you should check the condition of the soil, which should ideally be slightly damp.
After each procedure, it is recommended to loosen between the rows, lifting 4-5 cm of soil. Also, deeper weeding should be carried out several times during the warm season.
In the process of loosening, you should not add soil to the stem of the plant, since by these actions you will slow down the ripening of the onion.
If the shallots grow in a greenhouse, then after each watering, a little loosening will also be required. Thus, the roots will receive the required amount of oxygen.
In order for you to grow large bulbs, you need to remove small specimens from the garden from time to time, leaving only large ones. The procedure is as follows: you need to rake off the earth and take the feathers, closer to the base, pull out the plant. All weedsthat are nearby should also be removed.
Fertilizer
For the normal development and growth of onions, two feeding sessions should be carried out per season. The first procedure is carried out a couple of weeks after the fruit regrowth. To do this, use manure or bird excrement, diluted with water 1: 1. The next feeding is done after the formation of the bulbs.
It is better not to eat onion greens immediately after fertilizing.
In addition to organic fertilizers, you can take mineral fertilizers for feeding onions. These include ammonium nitrate or superphosphate. At the second stage of fertilization, mineral complexes are even preferable to organic ones. 1 m2 planted plants, about 10 g of superphosphate or potassium chloride is taken.
In spring, shallots can be planted in prepared soil using a technology similar to planting onions. In order to collect a generous harvest at the end of the season, you need to carry out all the actions for planting, caring for and feeding plants in accordance with agrotechnical rules.