Monday, October 19, 2009

And Now for Something Completely Different

Bulbs! On Sunday afternoon I decided to spend an hour planting some of my new bulbs. We had very low temps Friday and Saturday nights, so that meant that (according to my John Scheepers handy-dandy instruction booklet) I should plant now.

And I did, but only about 20 bulbs. First, it turns out that nothing was backordered. I mis-read the form. When I unpacked the boxes, there were my two missing peonies (!). Except one wasn't what it was supposed to be. Instead of 3 varieties, they sent me 2 Festiva Maxima and one Raspberry Sundae but zero Do Tell.

I emailed and my Do Tell is on its way. So you can stop hyperventilating.

But anyway, I now know that I have about 10,000 tulips to plant and another 2 (soon 3) peonies. All this in soil that closely approximates cement.

Which brings me to what I actually accomplished Sunday. In about an hour and ten minutes, I planted the daffodils and no more. That's right: 20 bulbs. If you look above, you can see that wicked-looking tool. It's for making a bulb hole.

However, it's pointy and smooth, and skinnier at its base than its top. Great for poking a hole, not so great for enlarging it enough to accomodate the HUGE FAT HINEYS of my daffodil bulbs. So instead of elegantly poking a hole, tossing in my bulb, covering and saying a little gardening prayer ("grow, dammit!"), I had to gouge out of the resisting soil every tiny particle of clay I could until a big enough pit existed to hold that bulging bit of plant life. It was hard.

This is what's left. Yeah. I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be doing with my time for a while. At least I've learned my lesson: tulip bulbs are sweet and svelte. Easy, peasy. Daffodil bulbs are large, Marge. Next time, I'll factor that into my plans.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

best get to it before the ground freezes over. Then you are SOL my friend until the spring thaw and that is too late for the bulbs.

No pressure...