1. Regarding sowing, I only know one I can remember … sow shallot onions on the shortest day, harvest on the longest day [Brundall, Norfolk, March 1991].

2. As a youth my late father worked on the land, as did his father … A keen gardener everything had to be grown at the proper time. His shallots were planted upon the shortest day to be harvested on the longest day [St Osyth, Essex, February 1989].

Practice also recorded from Thorncombe, Dorset [March 1975] and the Ashford area of Kent [Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, February 1991].

Image: Tooting, London Borough of Wandsworth; February 2014.