Just to update my shallot seed experiment: the shallots continued to divide and got quite bushy but they didn't bulb. Here are pics from September - I dug one just to see what they were like as scallions (nice garlicky flavor but kind of hard textured). They had really made deep roots and every seed produced a half dozen or so divisions. Since the roots were so firm I decided it would be best to leave them and hope they would overwinter.
I intended to mulch them but got unexpectedly busy in the fall and wasn't able to mulch any of the alliums. Then we had a strange winter with a lot of rain storms instead of snow, turning to snow or flash freezing into ice sheets at the end, and then weeks of very cold temperatures in the minus teens C. The shallot bed was covered in a sheet of ice, and I figured they were goners.
This weekend we had a thaw and I took a walk around the garden with my friend and her son. I was lamenting the fate of the shallots and pointed to the end of the bed where the ice sheet was just starting to recede.... holy cow! There they were, an inch through the ground!!
So they clearly made it through winter just fine, but the question now, will they survive our "spring"?
They are really precocious to be up this time of year. Nights are dipping to -7C (-19 F) this week, so well below "frost". My mom suggested to cover them with boughs, so that's what I did. I hope it's good enough...