Gardening Best Practices (aka my shallots appear as though they will bolt soon)

I think my shallots are going to seed. There are big bulbs at the tips that look suspiciously like they will become flowers. There is also a healthy contingent of British gardeners that are suffering from the same woes. My hobby compatriots actually suffered from this in early March in the midlands region, but their desperate listserv posts still showed up on the top of my Google searches last night. I tried to refine my web searching results to limit all hits to zone 7 and fall planted shallots. The latter search attempt tended to drive me to "seed saver" pages. Given my current state of frustration at my shallots bolting a bit too soon, I am less than enthused about learning about how to save the bitter seeds. I could at least find some comfort in the common struggles shared between myself and the English gardeners of another time and space.

I am still not sure where I should go to learn about my shallots. I have a very specific question, but the specific answer remains elusive. I have consulted a few vegetable gardening books from the library, but my bolting shallots don't appear to make their list of common problems. I need to know whether I should pull out my shallots right now to avoid them becoming bitter, or if I might be able to wait another week. I know this knowledge exists out there because others have certainly faced this problem. Yet in this world in which every piece of information feels as though it would simply be a click away, I can't seem to click to the correct answer. This is not a condemnation of the web as I can't find the answer that I need from library reference books either. I am the only one with shallots in my community garden, or I would have asked the wiser gardeners for their advice. Perhaps this just means that I have been in DC too long. Maybe there is not always a "best practice" or "model" that one can reference before making a decision. I will most likely have to experiment with this harvest and pull up half of the crop now and wait to see what happens with the rest in a week or two. I will be more seasoned when I plant again. And there will always be another fall.