Video: Grow Onions and Shallots

grow onions and shallots
Last year’s onion bed.

This week’s video is extra special because I’m joined by an extra special person. That would be my awesome husband, Bill! He really knows how to grow onions and shallots and is very willing to share his methods with you.

Bill’s methods center around two main things:

  • Growing each of these crops from seed.
  • Repeatedly trimming back their stems (while they’re indoors) to produce sturdy plants.

A lot of gardeners grow onions from “sets” (tiny bulbs) or onion plants. We’ve done that, too, but planting them from seed is so much more economical. Here are the varieties Bill is growing this year:

Onions:

  • ‘Ailsa Craig’
  • ‘Barolo’

Shallots:

  • ‘Creme Brulee’
  • ‘Zebrune’

Regarding the ‘Ailsa Craig’ onions, I wanted to mention something about their storage life. In theory, at least, the information says they’ll keep in storage for about a month. That’s not very long, is it? We grew this variety last year and store them in cardboard boxes in our insulated but unheated garage. They actually kept beautifully for several months so that’s why we’re growing them again this year! And, of course, the onion bulbs are HUGE!!

In order to grow onions and shallots, Bill starts them indoors from seed. This year, that was on January 11. Whenever the seedlings get several inches tall, he cuts them back to about 2 1/2″ to 3″ inches. Then they start growing again and once they’re tall again, he gives them another haircut. That probably seems like a mean thing to do, right? But the goal is to produce really sturdy plants that won’t flop over at transplanting time.

We teamed up to prepare and transplant all of the seedlings on April 17.

Before we get to the video, I wanted to remind you that I have an onion-growing guide and a shallot-growing guide on this website. Just click on those links to see either or both of them.

Now, about today’s video. In it, you’ll learn how Bill grows and prunes back the seedlings. Then he’ll demonstrate how he prepares each seedling prior to transplanting them. And then we plant them into two of our raised beds. It was such a treat to work on the video together!

Here’s my Grow Onions and Shallots Like a Champ! video:

Did you enjoy this week’s video? I have 600+ gardening videos on my YouTube channel. I also have a Vegetable Gardening Videos playlist so you can pick and choose what you’d like to watch.