The onions were 'Senshyu' sown on the 18th August. This apparently is the date to sow to make sure they are big enough for the winter, but small enough not to bolt. Time will tell.
I decided to try and produced garlic from saved cloves from last years harvest. These were either 'Christo' or 'Germidour' (I can't remember which, showing the importance of labelling what you plant!). I have read that garlic can acclimatise to the conditions in which it was grown so by saving an replanting you should be able to increase the harvest. As garlic needs several months at a low temperature I always try to plant in the Autumn.
As for the shallots I had a problem. In order to be able to save bulbs to replant every year, I needed the traditional shallots that act like garlic and produce several bulbs from a single bulb. I wanted to grow from seed to save money, and I also fancied growing the 'banana' types. However, after doing a bit of searching it seems that a lot of the modern 'banana' shallots from seed are actually onion/shallot hybrids and therefore only produce a single bulbs from a seed. Not ideal if I wanted to save them! The varieties I bought from seed were 'Red Florence' and the round 'Ambition', which appear to be the single bulbed types. Therefore I also bought 'Jermor', but these had to grown from sets. This will hopefully be the self-perpetuating I longed for...
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