I planted 1 ‘easy to grow’ vegetable this week that Monty Don urges is an ‘essential’

Gardening is something that I want to do more of this year, and with spring in full force, there’s no better time to start. Upon browsing Monty Don’s gardening blog, I saw that he recommended planting one “essential” vegetable between late March and April. The gardening guru recommended planting shallots at this time of year, claiming that they are “even more essential” than most other vegetables.

Speaking about his love of shallots, Monty said: “They have a sweet taste, tend to be easy to grow and store incredibly well, lasting a year or more in a cool, dark and well-ventilated place.” Monty also highlighted the fact that, unlike onion sets, which swell to become one full-sized onion, shallot sets “multiply to form a clump that can contain as many as a dozen individual bulbs”. As shallots are something I cook a lot with, it makes sense for me to grow them myself.



Plus, Monty’s tips for planting them made it ever so simple. Before planting them, I first gathered everything I needed - the main thing being the shallot bulbs. Shallots come in many shapes, colours and sizes, but Monty recommends red varieties, so I opted for “Red Sun”.

Producing good yields of crisp, white-fleshed bulbs, these shallots give off excellent flavour for cooking when added to salads. Aside from the bulbs, I grabbed a pair of gardening gloves and a hand trowel to dig up the soil. I used the Hori Hori trowel from Wilkinson Sword, which retails for just £14.

99 . This blends the functions of a trowel and a knife into one relatively lightweight tool. What I loved most about it is that it has an easy-to-read depth gauge, making planting the shallots precisely a breeze.

However, there are similar hand trowels on the market. You can pick up the Traditional Hori Hori Garden Trowel from Primrose for £22.39, currently down from £31.

99 or the Professional Hori Hori Garden Trowel from Amazon, which retails for £30.99, now down from £32.99 .

With all the equipment gathered, I then decided on a spot that’s relatively sunny, sheltered and has fertile, well-drained soil in the garden to plant the shallots. I then began planting each bulb with the roots facing down around 2cm deep and spaced them out nine inches apart. I only have enough bulbs for one row, but for those planting more, make sure to space the rows at least a foot apart.

This will make them easy to hoe. I finished planting the shallots by covering them with soil, but only slightly. I didn’t need to water them right away as the soil was still damp from the recent wet weather.

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