that's shallot!

This year's shallot harvest has been very disappointing. Most of them bolted in May as you can see from the photo. Even though I nipped off the seed heads I'm left with one thick tubular stem and very little bulb.

I'll get something from them but they won't store well so will have to be eaten fairly soon after they've dried fully.

The main onion crop and the little picklers are doing fine which is odd because they've all had the same growing conditions. Perhaps it was the particular variety of shallots but I can't remember what it was. Doh!!

Here's some of the little pickling onions which I lifted yesterday. I grow a lot just as clumps which I pop in to any spare bit of ground I can find. Scatter seed thinly on top of the compost in a five or six inch pot and when they get to a reasonable size just dig a hole, put the clump in it and leave to grow. They push each other apart as they grow and can be easily lifted when needed. Because they are so close together I do give them a regular liquid feed.

Talking of pickles, I currently have about 400g of nasturtium seeds soaking in brine in preparation for pickling in the next few days. They are said to taste like pickled capers but we'll have to wait and see.

This afternoon I gave a tub of cherries to a neighbour and got six fresh free-range eggs in exchange, and the promise of a cherry tart when she bakes next week. Little things like that really make my day and prove that the world is not such a bad place....bombings and disasters excepted.