Shallots (family): what is it, how and when to plant, what it looks like, the best varieties

Photos and descriptions of shallots represent an easy-to-grow and healthy crop with delicious green feathers. Before planting, it is necessary to study the features of the species and popular varieties.

History of origin

The first mention of shallots are found in the works of naturalists who lived before our era. The exact homeland of the plant has not been established – various researchers believe that the culture comes from the Mediterranean, Asia Minor or the Middle East.

Shallots came to Europe only in the 1958th century with the Crusaders. On the territory of the CIS, culture appeared in XNUMX – it was bred by selection in the Kharkov and Kuban regions.

Description and characteristics of shallot onion

Descriptions and photos of varieties of onions, or shallots, are very similar to each other. Plant varieties have the same structure and differ only in size and yield.

Appearance

Shallot, or Ascalonian onion (Allium ascalonicum), is a perennial herbaceous plant of the Onion family with a fibrous and shallow root system. It has tubular hollow cone-shaped leaves up to 25 cm in length, green feathers, often covered with a wax coating. When sown with seeds, the culture in the first year forms a whole-separate bulb, similar to a garlic head, with the beginnings of vegetative shoots. For the second season, it forms 4-20 small child turnips. Because of this feature, the species is also called “family”.

Shallots are able to grow daughter heads not only in the ground, but also during storage.

The shape of the heads of shallots can be round, oblong or oval, the mass is mostly about 50 g and rarely reaches 100 g. The outer dry scales are white, yellow, red or purple, and the inner ones are milky in color, sometimes with greenish or pinkish shade.

During the decorative period, the culture produces arrows up to 1 m tall with umbrella light or dark purple inflorescences. After that, it brings seeds that remain viable for up to two years.

Ripening time and yield of shallots

You can eat not only shallot feathers, but also its heads. The ripening period depends on the variety. It is customary to distinguish the following types:

• early – 85 days;
• medium – 85-120 days;
• late – 120-150 days.

The most popular is the early shallot. The crop yield averages 6 kg per meter of plantings.

Disease resistance

Shallots are relatively resistant to fungal diseases and insects. The danger for him in the garden is:

• peronosporosis – yellow spots appear on the feathers of the culture, gray-purple fungal spores become noticeable over time, the plant dries quickly;
  
  

  The shallots affected by peronosporosis are removed, and the remaining plantings are sprayed with Bordeaux liquid

• rust – light stripes and marks appear on shallot leaves, the greens gradually become thinner and fade;
  
  

  In case of rust, it is necessary to treat the beds with a solution of wood ash

• fusarium – the fungus infects the roots of the culture, after which they become covered with yellow spots and the feathers dry out, their edges become watery;
  
  

  With Fusarium, spraying with copper preparations and reducing the number of waterings helps.

• the onion fly is an adult pest, its larvae feed on the underground parts of shallots, the leaves turn yellow and begin to emit an unpleasant odor;
  
  

  The onion fly is well repelled by a weak solution of ammonia – 50 ml per bucket of water

• aphids – numerous small insects spread along the feathers of the culture for the entire length from the bottom up and suck out the plant juice.
  
  

  Aphids on shallots help eliminate apple cider vinegar or pepper solution

Fighting fungi and pests must first of all be preventive. Shallots can be protected from disease by regular loosening and weeding. It is also recommended to decontaminate the planting material of the crop before sowing in the soil and control the level of soil moisture.

Growing regions

Shallot belongs to the category of heat-loving plants. It is recommended to plant it, first of all, in the southern regions – in the Transcaucasus and the North Caucasus, near the Black Sea. Cultivation of crops in the middle lane and in the north in the open field is often associated with significant difficulties. At the same time, there are frost-resistant varieties of shallots, specially designed for growing in temperate climates.

Advantages and disadvantages of the variety

Shallots are popular with gardeners for several benefits. The advantages of culture include:

• high amounts of vitamins and minerals in green feathers;
• fast growth;
• good yield;
• short vegetative period;
• high drought resistance;
• versatility – the plant has edible both feathers and underground parts.

However, shallots have their drawbacks. Among the minuses can be called:

• high demands on the soil;
• low frost resistance;
• small sizes of turnips.

Shallots are not well suited for winter sowing. Even in the southern regions, during cold weather, a significant part of the planting material dies.

Varieties of family onions with photos and descriptions

Onion family varieties are represented by a large number of varieties with early and late ripening periods. There are several of the most popular.

Emerald

An early variety of shallots produces up to 1,4 kg of round turnips in a pink-brown husk with white flesh. Each fruit weighs about 20-30 g. The taste of the variety is semi-sharp, pleasant.

Shallot Emerald is stored for about ten months

Snowball

A juicy and healthy variety of shallots brings up to 1,9 kg of yield per square meter. Each of the egg-shaped turnips weighs about 35 g. The shelf life of the bulbs is not the maximum, but quite long – up to seven months.

Shallots of the Snezhok variety have a pronounced spicy taste.

Albic

The semi-sharp variety of shallots is distinguished by flat-rounded turnips of 20-30 g. The culture produces 4-8 heads per nest, ripens in an average of 60 days. You can store the crop for up to ten months.

Albic shallots are most often used fresh in salads.

Belozerets 94

The southern variety of shallots with pale lilac flesh and husks has a pleasant pungent taste and is highly juicy. The fruits are small, only up to 30 g, rounded or oval.

The yield of shallots Belozerets 94 is 1,4 kg per meter of garden

Bonilla F1

A hybrid shallot with oblong-rounded heads covered with a yellowish-brown husk. The mass of fruits is about 30 g. The crop yield is average – within 1,6 kg of turnips per meter of plantings. The feather can be cut every three weeks.

Shallot Bonilla F1 is characterized by a semi-sharp taste

When to plant shallots

The timing of planting shallots depends on the purpose of cultivation and on the region. In most areas, the crop is sown in the spring in early or mid-April, after the soil has warmed up to 8-10 ° C.

Planting a family bow before winter is allowed in the south. If the temperature does not fall below -20 ° C, the plant will endure the cold safely. Planting culture is carried out in the middle or end of October. Shallots can be cut into feathers in April, and the heads will ripen in June.

Shallot Planting Technology

To grow a large family onion, you need to choose the right plot for it in the garden. The place should be open and well lit, with loose, moderately moist soil, neutral or slightly acidic in composition.

It is recommended to plant a family of onions in those areas where legumes, potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers or tomatoes used to grow. At the same time, places where beets, garlic, carrots, corn and sunflowers were bred in the previous season should be avoided. With the latter plants, shallots have common diseases and can therefore be affected if the soil is infected.

Planting shallots in open ground sevkom

Growing family onions in open ground is easiest with the help of sets. About a week before the planned planting, the material must be prepared – sorted out and disinfected in a weak solution of potassium permanganate. You can also simply heat the shallot sets for ten hours at about 42°C.

The planting algorithm looks like this:

1. On the prepared bed, grooves are dug up to 3 cm deep, leaving 10-20 cm between the rows, depending on the size of the shallots.
2. The soil is pre-moistened, and then the seedlings are planted at intervals of 10 cm between individual specimens.
3. Fill the grooves with earth and mulch the beds with peat or humus.

To speed up the germination of the sevka, it can be cut “by the shoulders” or by about 1/3. But the yield of greens and turnips in this case will decrease somewhat.

For spring planting, a medium-sized set is best suited, and for autumn, one that is smaller

Growing shallots from seeds

When using seeds, shallots are usually grown through seedlings. The crop sowing scheme is as follows:

1. Planting material is pre-soaked in a fungicide or a weak solution of potassium permanganate for disinfection.
2. The seeds are dried and sown at a distance of 3 cm from each other in shallow boxes with loose nutrient soil with the addition of peat and humus.
3. The grains of the crop are covered with earth and sprayed abundantly with a spray gun so as not to erode the soil with watering.
4. Cover the container with film to create a greenhouse effect and put in a warm place with moderate lighting at a temperature of about 22 ° C.
5. When shoots appear, they remove the shelter, moisten the soil again and move the box to a more sunny corner.

Planting family onions in the spring in the ground is usually carried out in April, after the formation of the third leaf of the seedlings.

Harvest of turnips using the seedling method ripens by the end of summer or early September

Shallot Care

Agrotechnics of shallots from seeds comes down to a few simple steps. During cultivation, you need to monitor the moisture content of the crop and the quality of the soil:

1. Watering. Shallots need abundant moisture immediately after planting and during the drought period. The rest of the time, watering is carried out as needed. If the crop is grown on a turnip, then about a month before harvesting, they completely stop moistening the onions, otherwise the heads will turn out small.
2. Top dressing. The first time the plant is fertilized after the formation of three feathers, you need to use bird droppings or a solution of mullein. The second time it is necessary to apply top dressing for the crop after the appearance of the fifth leaf or at the stage of bulb formation. Potassium chloride and superphosphate are usually used, which are dissolved in water for irrigation. A month before harvesting, stop fertilizing shallots. Otherwise, the culture will grow greenery to the detriment of the turnips.
3. thinning. To successfully grow shallots from seeds or sets, you need to remove the arrows immediately after the appearance. In July, thinning of the nests is carried out – the smallest heads are removed along with the greenery, leaving only 5-6 well-developed primordia for each plant.

Shallots are sensitive to lack of oxygen. Twice a week, loosening should be carried out for the crop, simultaneously removing fast-growing weeds.

When breeding on a feather, shallots can be watered throughout the growing season.

How to propagate shallots

For the propagation of shallots, two methods are used – seed and vegetative:

1. Sevkom. The method allows to accelerate the development and maturation of the culture, and also provides a higher yield. At the same time, it should be taken into account that after 3-5 years of life, shallots begin to lose their varietal qualities and bring less quality sets.
2. Seeds. For propagation of an adult plant on the site, the method is used less frequently than the vegetative one. The culture produces few grains, and they germinate poorly. To improve the characteristics of planting material, you can specially select several large healthy bulbs and hold them for about four months at a temperature of 4-12 ° C. Then the material is sown, waiting for abundant flowering and collecting seeds.

From seed-sprouted shallots, numerous small heads can be obtained in the second year and used for vegetative propagation.

When to dig family onions

It is necessary to harvest different types of shallots at the moment when the feathers of the crop turn yellow and fall to the ground. This usually happens in the middle or end of August.

With green feathers, it is impossible to harvest – in immature turnips, even after prolonged drying, rot often develops. You should not overexpose the culture in the garden, as the bulbs will begin to grow roots and prepare for winter, and their keeping quality will deteriorate greatly.

How to store shallots

After harvesting, wilted leaves are cut off from the shallots and the turnips are dried for several days in a shaded but warm place. After that, the crop is sorted out, if necessary, the heads are separated, placed in wooden boxes or cardboard boxes and placed in a cool room. Shallots can be kept in the cellar or in the attic, the latter being better because of the lower humidity.

The shelf life of shallots under the conditions is 5-12 months, depending on the variety

Freezing is also used to store family onions. The heads are peeled and, if necessary, cut into pieces, then moistened a little and put in the freezer. Turnips retain valuable properties up to a year and do not lose their taste.

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Conclusion

It is interesting to study the photo and description of shallots before planting a crop in a summer cottage. The plant is represented by many varieties. When leaving, you need to control the soil moisture in the garden and prevent weeds from overgrowing.