Onions and shallots

'Toughball' harvested in June from September sowing.

For a number of years now I have been growing onions and shallots from seed.

Why? Because the seed is often cheaper than the sets, you get more seed, and I enjoy sowing from seed. I have also found that the shallots are bigger and the onions tend not to bolt.

This year my saved onion seed didn't germinate well so I bought some onion sets, rather late too. They have produced a crop, but with the dry start to the year and the damp summer the crop is not brilliant.

The shallots however have been fantastic. The seed, Ambition, germinated well and I did two sowings. One group were planted out in what seems to be a damper part of the patch and produced shallots almost the size of my fist! They have a lovely sweet flavour. The other group are smaller but will keep better. We only finished the last of the previous year's crop as I began to pull this year's crop.

I also grow autumn onions for an early crop in June. Last year I sowed Toughball, not as the seed supplier directed but in my usual way, in a pot and pricked out into modules. They were sown in September and looked very small as winter started. I only grow in the polytunnel and good job too with the snow we had! They made it through the winter and romped away in the spring forming good solid large bulbs. They were so successful that I have recently made a sowing of the remaining seed (if it fails to germinate I should have time to order some fresh seed). I cannot direct sow into the polytunnel as it remains too crowded until the summer crops have been harvested, and I have never found direct sown onions or shallots to be successful.