Garlic vs Shallots

The gardens are growing!

  At last!

Delight Delight Delight

 

I'm harvesting peas finally and there are tiny beans on the bush beans

Lots of salads here, the lettuces finally look very good.  Eat yours while they are tender

Now for the Garlic vs Shallots issue.

I pulled all of mine and my shallots stayed small

but here is a photo. 

The shallots grow next to one another so close they can look like a garlic. 

But the garlic we grew this year was white or red streaked

and the shallot is golden.

The garlic has sword like leaves coming from a central stem

Shallots have many individual green tube like leaves.

  The number depends on the grouping of bulbs.

 There are two kinds of garlic

Hard neck and soft neck.

Hard neck has a nice stiff stem down the 

middle and the cloves grow around the stem.

The soft neck act like artichokes with cloves growing

over one another like the leaves of an artichoke.

You can use garlic fresh from the garden but I like it better in a month

it's so wet when I pull it, but tasty.  It gets stronger tasting with storage.

Shallots act like a multiplier onion

The bulbs multiply freely producing several lateral bulbs

The green tube like stems can be cut and used like green onions but the 

very best way to eat Shallots is sauteed in butter. 

They are creamy and sweet and I can't get enough of them.

Perfect in gravy's and sauces or just 

sauteed and laid on top of a roasted chicken breast.