It’s Monday as I write this and, my goodness, I am sore from head to toe. This past weekend was a classic full-court fall cleanup, with wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes and the rototiller running from morning to night.
It felt good to go to bed Sunday night after accomplishing much of our To-Do list, but a few items remained. We still have about half of our 30 yards of compost waiting to be spread, a few shrubs yet to plant, and we still have hundreds of spring-blooming bulbs waiting to go into the ground.
I’m not panicking, not yet anyway. In southern Maine, where the soil is showing no sign of freezing anytime soon, I’m guessing that I’ll be able to plant bulbs until early to mid December. In northern areas, you may be in more of a rush, but chances are you still have time left, too.
Bulbs are gardening’s slam dunk. Stick them in the ground, ideally at least twice as deep as the bulbs’ diameter, and you’ll almost certainly be rewarded with a blossom next spring. Deer, squirrels, chipmunks and skunks are usually the only things that keep bulbs from blooming. If critters have historically been a problem, you can either spray the bulbs with a deer and squirrel deterrent available at your local garden center, or plant the bulbs under a layer of wire mesh. You can also plant daffodils in close proximity to the bulbs and they will act as nature’s own deterrent, since nothing — not even a hungry deer — will eat a daffodil bulb or blossom.
This is also a good time to prepare bulbs for indoor bloom in February and March. In the technique known as “forcing,” you can trick bulbs into thinking it’s spring several weeks ahead of time.
Here are the steps:
1) Pot the bulbs in a container with a drainage hole and fill it about halfway with potting soil. At least a couple of inches of soil below most bulbs would be ideal;
2) add some bone meal as fertilizer;
3) check the position; bulbs can be tightly packed, but shouldn’t be touching;
4) add water, enough to moisten all of the potting soil;
5) place the container in a cool, dark spot such as a protected porch, garage, unheated basement or the refrigerator shelf;
6) check the container regularly for about three months;
7) when shoots begin to emerge a couple of inches high, move the container into the full light and warmth and you should get blossoms within two to three weeks.
Plan ahead. If you start now, you can have blooming tulips by March, just about the time the flower shows are in full gear. You’ll have a flower show of your own on your kitchen table.
Paul Tukey - November 8, 2005.
