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Potato Onions or Shallots?

14 years ago

I was thinking of growing either potato onions or shallots next year but can't decide which one.

The reason I want to grow them is that I don't want to have to bother with buying onion seeds or sets every year.

I don't know anything about growing shallots (any growing tips will be greatly appreciated), but from what I read about potato onions is that if you plant a large bulb you get a bunch of little ones and if you plant a little bulb you get a big one. Is this true, and if so when do you plant? Spring or fall?

I only have a limited amount of space to grow them and I was wondering which one would produce the most in a 3' by 3' area?

Rodney

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Comment (1)

someguyinmaine
14 years ago
Potato Onions don't do very well in the Northern States and are very insect susceptible.

The small multiplier onions (Allium ascalonicum) that are often sold as shallots are very bug and disease susceptible.

French gray shallots (Allium oschaninii) grow better in the northern states and southern provinces and are quite disease and bug resistant. It is not unusual to get a 10:1 or better yield. These are commonly grown in France and should grow well in Michigan, since it gets about the same amount of sunlight as France (same latitude). They don't grow nearly as well in the southern states, so they might be a little hard to find, though Scheepers (Connecticut) used to sell them.
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