For the past couple of years I’ve had a bit of a vegie garden – mostly in pots.
I’ve had mixed success. Cherry tomatoes, beans, and pumpkins have been prolific and seem to just love our Redlands climate, although I’ve never had any luck with zucchini, and my radishes refuse to “bulb”!
But the one thing that is constant is my two pots of shallots. Just call me the “Lady of Shallots” (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson for stealing the name of his poem)!
I cut the leafy tops off to use in my cooking at least once a week (some people call them spring onions or scallions. Whatever. I call them shallots).
Shallots are great in stir fries and cheese balls, as a garnish on potato bake, omelettes, my awesomely yummy brown rice salad (if you’re really lucky I’ll share the recipe with you in an upcoming post! It’s a hit wherever I take it and I always get asked for the recipe), in fact as a garnish on just about any salad or savoury dish. Shallots can be used in any dish which requires a milder onion flavour.
I must have saved a fortune over the past two years. Imagine, if I bought a bunch of shallots at the supermarket every couple of weeks for a couple of dollars each time.
Instead, from an initial outlay of a couple of dollars for the seedlings, I have shallots anytime I want them – and the pleasure of knowing they are home grown and garden fresh! And we all know that fresh means more vitamins and other goodies – the leaves of shallots boast vitamins A & C, fibre and folic acid, to name but a few.
Have I convinced you to grow your own shallots yet? Do you grow any herbs or vegies?
Now I am going to look silly…so you can just keep growing them and you dont need to dig them up? How long does this last? About to start some serious vege gardening this year and need all the tips I can get!
Thanks for linking up with #TUST
Annaleis – Blogs and PR Team Member
That’s all right Annaleis, I didn’t know either until I started growing my own! I’ve had these ones two years now and still going though they’re getting a bit straggly looking.
Hi Janet – you have just made me realise that I need to add SHALLOTS (yes I call them that too) to my potted herb garden. I use them quite often and hadn’t thought to grow them. I grow parsely, chives, mint, coriander etc. I have a potted herb garden because if they were in the ground the doggies would seek and destroy! Anyway – I have a couple of empty pots amongst the herbs where there have been failures so thankyou – I shall fill at least one with some shallots! 🙂
You won’t regret it!
We tried growing them once… and they were itty bitty…. might get our garden going again this year..
Visiting from #TTUT 🙂
I love trying different things in my vegie patch. You never know what works for you til you try!
They’re spring onions in my book Janet, Tomatoes/Tomartoes, Potatoes/Potartoes and all that!
(I’m not at all sure how to write that, but I’m sure you’ll get the reference!)
I’ll be watching for the recipe – I love a good brown rice salad!
Cheers,
Amanda
I’ll see if I can post it here next week!
Oh no I just realised that I haven’t watered my vegies today and they are sweltering out there in the GC sun…. my cherry toms as fine but my lettuce, not so much! Visiting from Blogs and PR (and also because I’m a ‘fan’)
Emily
Oh wow, I have a ‘fan’! You’ve made my day!
I love growing my own herbs, the only one I buy now is coriander because it goes to seed too quickly. Saves a fortune, I haven’t grown shallots, I just use my chives instead. I might put some in when this heat dies down.
They’re so easy to grow, aren’t they!
I couldn’t grow a shallot for the life of me. I am rubbish at gardening! My mother-in-law has a lovely vegetable garden and she gives me stuff all the time. They taste so much better. Visiting from Blogs & PR 🙂
They’re actually easy to grow and seem to thrive on neglect!
We started a veggie garden in containers. All is going well except… we are not really sure how to know if they are ready. So lettuce sometimes turn into trees. Seriously.
I’m not a gardner at all. I rely on my Mum giving me fresh herbs and vegies from her garden when she can. I love the ‘Lady Of Shallots’ title though lol