I said on 17th April that I had thinned my shallots to leave 2 in each pot. This involves carefully peeling back the outer skin and breaking away all the other small bulblets to leave just 2. These will then swell quickly with the extra room they have, and should be a better, more rounded shape also.
The thinnings are planted in front of the pots. When you do this they are often strangely shaped, being almost square in some cases. But they will become round now that they are not squashed up against their brothers and sisters and should be ideal for entering in the pickling classes for shallots under 25mm.....although this can be under 30mm in some shows!
The pic shows a pot with a thinned out set of 2 with the thinnings planted into the soil in front of them. I would have given them a sprinkling of dried blood after thinning to give them a nitrogen boost, and have recently taken to watering them with phostrogen to help with the ripening process and to firm them up ready for lifting in the middle of June. More on that then.
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