Right. Some of them are difficult to separate. But then you will get multiple. I think it depends on the variety.

I'm a bit puzzled by this question. I have never seen a shallot with cloves - they are single bulbs like onions.

Although they grow in clumps they are not all part a a single 'head'. The picture shows how they grow but they are split up for sale. Are they sold in their clumps in the US?

A single shallot planted would produce a good tuft of green.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shallots

Floral,
There are different varieties, I think. Shallots resemble dividing onions. Some varieties grow several bulbs under one wrapper. Once you remove the outer wrapper you can separate them,like garlic cloves.

Look at this picture. Each bulge ( can see at least 3) can be separated.

floral_uk- Shallots here grow the same as they do in the UK. At least mine do. Double bulbs do happen occasionally.

Deeby- Not sure if your shallot was grown from seed or bulbs but next time just plant it whole. It's not worth trying to separate the double bulbs. Especially since you are only after the greens, not bulbs. (although I never separate the doubles from my bulb grown shallots anyway)

I don't know how seed grown shallots grow. But here is the life cycle of a shallot when you plant bulbs (these pics are from last year). On the left you see it starting to sprout (in March, the ground was still a bit frozen), as you can see they send up multiple shoots. The middle picture is actively growing. And on the right is when they are bulbing up and getting close to harvest (in June).

{{gwi:14193}}

Rodney

Oh, I get it. I just assumed that shallots grow and clove like garlic because they look like garlic. But they're onion-y.
Thanks all !

Shallots do in fact have multiple cloves under one bulb. It really depends, but it's not uncommon here to see double cloves in a single shallot bulb. It's usually easy to tell if it has more than one clove in it, or if it's just a single clove though.

Well, maybe I didn't get it. LOL ! At any rate, I'll plant the whole thing. I bought two.

I just took about 4 of them that i had and each one was made of two pieces, when I removed tha wrap and then planted them.

Here is one before dividing;

Here is the same shallot after removing the wrapper and dividing it.