Shallot, Ed's Red

Allium cepa

An open-pollinated shallot that’s every bit as good as the hybrids!

Shallots are the long-keeping champions of gourmet cuisine, with their divine flavor and meaty texture that lends itself oh-so-well to roasting, sauteing and caramelizing. A decent open-pollinated shallot is a real treasure, since all that was available for so long in seed catalogs was hybrids that wouldn’t grow true-to-type when grown from saved seed, or OPs that were really more like red onions than true shallots. Fedco Seeds trialed the red-skinned Dutch OP variety ‘Ed’s Red’ and found it was initially all over the map in terms of its form, but it has since been improved by beloved Nampa, Idaho farmer Beth Rasgorshek. Her improved variety has since traveled to seed companies all around the country. Shallots store all the way through the winter and well into the following summer under cool, dry conditions! Woo-hoo!

Seeds grown by Swift River Farm in Salmon, Idaho.

150 seeds

Directions: Start indoors in late winter, 10-12 weeks before last frost. Plant seeds ⅛” deep and ¼“ apart in a single pot. Transplant out shortly after the soil can be worked, 1” deep with 3-6” spacing.