Shallot tops

Every once in a while, something grows unexpectedly in the garden to surprise and give joy.

I use shallots a lot in our cooking. It brings out another dimension to food when used appropriately.

Our happy pot of shallots started as a resilient little bulb that sprouted in the basket. I kept it aside on the potting rack to pot. But in the midst of renovations, it got forgotten. 

When I next looked, it was a shriveled little clump of sadness that had almost dried out.

I plonked it into a pot of carrot tops I was experimenting with. And this was what it looked like:

It's the poor little cluster at the bottom left. Hopes were not high and it was left to its own devises. 

(Note: The thriving greens with the fancy leaves are carrot tops. Will follow up with a separate post to share the findings of that experiment.)

This morning, after 2 days of torrential morning showers in sunny Singapore, this amazing healthy cluster of joy popped up in the pot!

Just six days after potting, it has grown from 2cm to about 10cm. And from 1 cluster to 3!

 

So now it sits happily in its own pot basking in the sun.

A few sprigs of the shallot tops go straight into our cold soba lunch. Hand in hand with ice cold sparkling water and a slice of lemon from our garden. Perfect combination to beat the heat!

Update 11 Sep 15:

1-2 weeks after enjoying the shallot tops, they died back. A quick search reveals that shallots, onions and garlic do not yield bulbs here in our tropical climate!! 

The greens do flourish, but I have no idea if they last. 

As the little tops were really tasty, I decided to keep a bunch of shallot tops handy. So I popped a little shallot onto a seed pot filled with Welgrow substrate. This time, I had none with shoots. So it's a good opportunity to find out how long it will take to develop shoots. I planted it on 29 Aug 2015. I also did not bury the bulb.

It was a long process to develop the shoot. 2 weeks of little or no action. The roots took a long while to develop as well. 

Then finally on 11 Sep 2015 more than 2 weeks later, the first sighting of some form of life. 

What a relief! Now back to fingers crossed.

Update 16 Sep 2015:

5 days from the first sighting of a shoot, it's still happily going strong. The growth is slower and less impressive than if the bulb was submerged in the soil. But let's see if it lasts longer.

Ginger

I heard that ginger is easy to grow, requiring low maintainace and little sunlight. Even then, my first attempt failed miserably. 

I potted 'new' ginger which had about 5 nodes, but buried them without drying out. After about a week, 3 shoots appeared. But the growth of the shoots stagnated at about an inch - then got water-logged and died! So I dug up the ginger and realised that the ginger has got so moist it disintegrated. I doubt it's over-watering, because the soil was well drained. 

So I decided to test out the different types of ginger readily available in our local markets. There is 'new' ginger that comes with green stalks and 'old' ginger which has dried out skin.

I left the ginger experiment in the pantry without sun. This is what have got to after 3 weeks:

There are a lot of nodes on the 'new' ginger. After 3 weeks the nodes are a lot more pronounced and the ginger turns greenish. It still feels 'juicy' although less firm than when I first got it. The skin is slightly drier. The green stalks that came with the ginger dried up in about 1 week, so I just snapped them off.

The 'old' ginger had less nodes, so I just picked out a piece that looked most promising. Nothing happened in a week. I read online that soaking might help, as some growers spray on growth retardants to make the produces last longer. So I soaked the ginger overnight and little nodes appeared after a couple of days. Now, a few of the nodes have got more pronounced. That is good news.

I will continue to monitor and update here. 

Update 19 August 15: 

After a long hiatus, as we got busy with renovation works, I finally got round to putting bits and pieces of the mostly dried out ginger in a pot of top soil on 31 July 2015. I covered them with approximately 2cm of soil, watered daily and waited...

Nothing happened for almost 2 weeks. I tried to probe around the soil but could not seem to find the ginger - again. Thinking they have 'disintegrated' once again, I chucked the pot aside to reuse the soil when the need arise. The pot was left unattended, so it dried out, with cracks appearing on the surface of the soil. 

On the 17th day, a tiny little green shoot peeked out of the dry soil. It was firm and strong! Thank goodness I have not got round to reusing the soil yet! 

Apart from a daily spritz of water from the spray bottle, I continue to leave the pot neglected, in the shade.

2 days later, a little leaf started to form from the shoot. I have never got so far with ginger. So this is good news. Here you can see how dry and cracked the soil is.

Update 28 August 15:

It is almost 10 days after the first leaf and another happy leaf is growing out. I keep to the daily spritz from the spray bottle and continue to leave the pot in shade. I also topped up some soil. It looks so green and happy. I hope it is here to stay.

If this little success is anything to go by, I have been overwatering the ginger. Previous trials, I have been watering till the water seeped out at the base. Looks like the roots do not survive under the super moist condition. 

I am inclined to think that it was the 'old' ginger that sprouted. To confirm, I have placed 2 more chunks of 'old' ginger in the pot. I just barely cover them in soil. And they get a daily spritz as well. Hopefully we can get another batch of ginger going. 

Update 11 Sep 15:

It has been about 6 weeks after the ginger has been placed in the soil. The shoot is almost 20cm. I think it's safe to say that this is here to stay. Yay! 

Update 17 Sep 2015:

As parts of the ginger start to peek from under the plant, I have been moulding up the soil to cover the ginger deeper. 

It's 2.5 weeks after the first leaf is spotted and 7 weeks after putting the ginger in the ground. 

The ginger plant is happily establishing itself. 

Plus new shoots appearing! 

I am not able to establish if these shoots are coming from the same ginger or old remnant ginger in the pot. Tried to dig around but it emerged from deep within. So I did not trace in case I injure the new shoots. 

I have been keeping the ginger parched. I only spritz water on the top of the soil daily. 

The tough part about growing roots and tubers for me is the mystery surrounding the success. It's a lot of groping around in the dark and keeping fingers crossed.

Update 26 Sep 2015:

Some of the lower leaves in the original ginger plant seem to turn brown. Not too sure if it's related to the couple of days of haze. But it seem to have stopped spreading. So that is a relief. 

The new shoots are growing well. Looks like there are 2 shoots growing at the same time. Happy!