Should Remove Shallot Flowers

Remove any flower stalks – you want your shallots to concentrate on bulb formation, not flowering. Keep the bed well-weeded to reduce competition (the mulch will help). Your shallots are ready to harvest when the tops yellow and begin to fall over. Last year I planted mine in October and harvested in May (in Petaluma).

Should I cut the flowers off my onion plants?

Don’t let onions flower! … As soon as you see an onion has flower buds, snip the buds to prevent the bulb from splitting, then harvest and eat those onions first, the sooner the better. Onions that have bolted don’t store well. Onion bolting is a problem for even professional growers.

Can you eat onions that have flowered?

That said, onions that have flowered are still edible. They should be cured, the leaves and flower stalk removed, and the bulb eaten within a couple of months. Even if you find a few of your onions bolting, all is not lost.