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.