Good cooks prefer shallots to onions as they know that the taste is far superior and lifts any full flavoured savoury dish that otherwise would include onions. They're delicious peeled and pickled too and the perfect accompaniment to good cheese. Shallots are easy to grow in most garden soils and just need a sunny spot - plant a single bulb and it grows and divides through spring and summer giving as many as 6 or 8 new bulbs to harvest at the end of summer. The green foliage is also tasty used in summer salads but use sparingly to make sure of the best bulb harvest! Dry and keep indoors, using when needed, shallots keep really well and often last through to spring. Any you have left can be planted back so keeping your own stock over the years. Golden Gourmet is a favourite garden variety giving a heavy crop of round brown skinned shallots with a great taste and which are very good keepers.