I’ve been eying one of our garlic beds closely for some time now.
This bed has the Purple Stripe garlic. Most of them started dying back a while ago, which was very strange. It seemed very early for them to be doing that. Especially since some of them were still growing scapes. I’ve been reading as much as I can, and everything tells me that once, with so many of their leaves died back, the bulbs are done growing. When even the scapes seemed to have stopped growing, I decided it was time to dig them up.
But just the ones that had died back.
I left behind the ones that were still green. Hopefully, their bulbs will continue to grow bigger.
It’s normally recommended to leave them on the ground to cure, but we have too many critters of various kinds that could get into them, even if they aren’t likely to eat them, so I laid them out next to the kibble house under the tent.
As you can see, most of them are very small. There’s only one or two larger ones. I wish I knew why they stopped growing so early. They had the same soil, sun and water as the other two varieties. No matter. While we won’t have anything to keep for planting in the fall, I’m sure they will still taste good!
Also, when I came over to set these out, Rosencrantz’s grey and white kitten was at the kibble house. It wasn’t until I started setting out the garlic that he took off. Last night, I topped up their kibble dish near their junk pile home. When I came back to top up their water, Rozencrantz and both of her kittens were eating. She and the orange tabby left, but the grey and white stayed and kept eating, even as it watched me closely while I refilled their water bowl next to him. Progress! Junk Pile’s four kittens have also been spotted in the kibble house, eating, too. We’ve decided not to give it another coat of paint, but might do some decorative painting on the outside, so the floor boards have been put back in place, and their food bowls are now in the shade of the kibble house, instead of on the baked lawn. Junk Pile’s kittens dash off as soon as they see us, but the fact that they are coming to the kibble house to eat at all is more progress.
I’m glad I picked up this tent. It’s coming in handy for painting, for critter shelter, and now garlic curing, already! :-D
You just have to love how quickly things change, day by day!
The first ornamental poppies started blooming this morning. They have had bulbs for a while now, and then this morning, two of them exploded into full bloom. :-)
I was looking at the garlic yesterday evening, and seeing what might, possibly, could be, itty bitty garlic scapes starting to come up. They were so tiny, I couldn’t be sure.
This morning, there was no doubt. Our first garlic scapes are starting to form! We are really looking forward to when they can be harvested and trying different things with them. :-)
I have saved the best for last – check this out!
Our very first tomato flowers!! You can see the tiny little buds behind it, too.
These are the super tiny Spoon tomatoes. In reviews, people have warned that these self-seed very easily, because they are so tiny, it’s impossible to pick them all before they ripen and fall off the vine.
We’ve got no problem with that, and chose this location with that in mind.
I’m just so happy with how things are growing. Most of these are in new beds in new locations, with limited preparation. Every single plant that has survived is, for me, a total miracle. :-D I’m hoping how things are looking now are a sign of a very busy fall, preserving the harvest. :-)
Today was one of those days that went all over the place! So this is probably going to be a very disjointed post! :-D
One of the first things I wanted to get done this morning was to call the RCMP, as advised by my lawyer, about the gunshots from our vandal’s property. For non-emergency calls like this, it first goes to a receptionist who then, if it seems warranted, starts a file (or adds notes to an existing file), then passes it on to a constable, who calls back later.
The challenge was to bring up my concerns about hearing the shots, while also making it clear that there was no crime that took place. The interesting thing is that, as I described a bit of about why it was a concern in this particular case, the receptionist asked, “is this about…” and gave the name of our vandal.
I had not mentioned his name, nor did I mention my own. Yet, she knew who I was talking about!
She might have looked up my phone number in their system while we were talking, but she later had to ask me what my name was, so… that’s probably not it. She did remember talking to me about our situation previously, which would have been at least 8 months ago.
After we talked for a while, she put me on hold to talk to someone else, then came back to me with a new file number, telling me that an officer would call me back later. Since we were going to the city later, I gave my cell phone, just in case.
I shouldn’t do that. Whenever there is a cell phone number available, that’s the first number that gets called!
Once I was done on the phone, I went to quickly do my morning rounds, only to have my pocket start ringing. The officer was calling me back already! I do have my phone set to use WiFi, and at first he could hear me just fine, but then my signal started breaking up. We managed to arrange for him to call the land line, and I got back into the house just as the phone started ringing! Thankfully, I made sure my husband had the phone before I headed outside, so he got it before it went to machine.
In the end, the call was pretty much what I expected. There is no cause for them to go over. They did check and our vandal’s firearms license is up to date, and there are no restrictions in our area in regards to firing a weapon on your own property. He did tell me that, if something like this happens again, to go ahead and call 911, even if I didn’t feel it was an emergency. They would pass me on to dispatch and it would go from there. He also assured me that, even though there clearly was no crime (and I made sure to say, normally I would have no issues hearing gunshots out here), it was a good idea to call, given our particular situation. If nothing else, there is now a file on record.
Now that I think about it, though, while I’ve certainly heard gunshots a few times since moving out here, I have never heard gunshots from our vandal’s property before, or even that direction.
So that’s taken care of, as much as possible right now.
After quickly finishing my morning rounds, my daughter and I then headed out to the city, with a quick stop at the post office, first. Much to my surprise, I found a letter from the Court of Queen’s Bench. I opened it before we continued on, and it turned out to be about the court date for the civil suit our vandal filed against me, in retaliation for applying for a restraining order against him. We had an in-person court date in July but, according to the letter, due to Schrodinger’s Virus, all in-person small claims matters scheduled between May 6 and September 6 were being rescheduled and being done through teleconference calls.
Court of Queen’s Bench is federal, not provincial. The dates seem rather telling.
Anyhow, our teleconference date is set for September 10 now. Since my restraining order is a provincial matter, it is not affected by this. However, from what I’m hearing right now, our provincial government has no intention of relaxing their choke hold on us. I fully expect our court date in July to get cancelled. I really hope I’m wrong.
My daughter and I then continued on to the city, with a brief stop at a gas station along the way to grab some food. Now that we have changed where we get our gas, we’ve started going to a place that not only has hot food available, but even a few tables to sit and eat at, if desired. They’ve got some of the best fried chicken and potato wedges around! :-D When we got there, I just parked and dashed in to get food. I walked in fine, but as I walked out, something went wrong and a metatarsal in one of my feet decided it didn’t like where it was and tried to escape.
That hurt. :-/
My daughter thought it was a great idea when I suggested that maybe we should keep my father’s walker in the van. Just in case. We do keep a collection of canes in the van, though, so at least I had that to fall back on.
Once in the city, we headed straight to the Costco, drove through the parking lot, saw the line up was even worse than yesterday, and kept on going. We went to the Superstore, instead. They had a line, too, but it was shorter and moving. My daughter reminded me to grab a cane, then when we were in line, she was able to get a shopping cart for me to lean on as we snaked our way through.
The down side of the change is that they don’t have flat carts. We did get most of what was on our list, but only half the amount of cat kibble we should have gotten, and a few other heavier or bulkier things got dropped. We’ll have to make another trip, later in the month. For the kibble, at least, we can go to the smaller city for some things, while other items can be gotten locally.
The price of beef has gotten insane. :-(
Even though we only went to the one place, we were both exhausted by the time we were done. My daughter dislikes shopping as much as I do! We find these trips more tiring than a day of hauling wheelbarrows full of soil. Plus, with the drive, I was having breathing issues again, and my daughter did the driving on the way home. I’m so glad she comes along, “one person per household” be damned. :-(
Still, it feels good to be stocked up again, even if some things will need to be topped up later.
Once we were at home, I had time to check the trail came files. Nothing triggered the tulip cam at all. I had plans to finally plant the beans today, and maybe start on the squash tunnel, but it was insanely windy. For all the rains we finally got, everything is all dried up again. In checking the garden beds, when I pushed my fingers into the soil, it’s dry all the way through. So this evening, wind or no, I went out to water.
I’m really happy with how great the garlic is doing!! Next year, we need to plant more. :-D
I set up the new hose we bought yesterday, and was able to reach everything that needed watering at the far end of the garden. Which was handy, because I hadn’t had a chance to refill the rain barrel we have out there, for the watering can. We want to get more of those. We’d rather use watering cans and warmer water, as the well water gets to incredibly cold.
Which reminds me. I looked up about the mulberry tree. There isn’t a lot of information out there, but I did find one site that proved useful. It turns out that mulberry trees tend to just drop their leaves when hit with frost, and grow back new ones. If our little mulberry had more time after being transplanted, it would have been better, but it may still actually survive. We shall see!
Meanwhile…
I found these tracks on one of the spinach beds. They were not there, this morning! The seedlings at the very end were nibbled on, too. There are no defined tracks in the soil, but I am inclined to think it was a deer. Partly due to the spacing of the tracks, and partly because we almost hit a deer this morning, while on the way to the post office! In this morning’s trail cam files at the gate, there was a deer making its way through the fence and hanging out in the driveway, too. We seem to have a lot of deer activity this year.
Tomorrow, we have to figure out how to set up the new chicken wire to protect our garden beds! Time to go scavenging in the barn and sheds for materials again.
I think that project just took priority over building squash arches!
We have the handsome Ginger to greet us! He’s been quite the character, and a lot of fun. :-)
The outside cats were happy for breakfast. :-)
We finally took the tarp off the top of the kibble house. We got some rain yesterday; enough to soften the ground a bit. It should be fine until we get some paint.
My daughter wants to paint it yellow. !! Not a bright lemon yellow or anything like that, thankfully. :-D
The girls and I removed most of the mulch from the garlic beds the other day, and uncovered many more sprouting garlic. Most were a bit on the yellow side, since they hadn’t worked their way through the mulch to the light, yet, but they are already looking nice and green and strong.
We moved the mulch over to the new bed, then covered it with a sheet of metal we scrounged from the outer yard, so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. We will have to build a box around this bed. At this point, if I add soil to the top as planned, it’s high enough that it’ll just fall off on the sides. I think we have some scrap wood in the barn we can use for that. It’ll be temporary, so it doesn’t need to look fancy or anything! :-)
After doing my morning rounds, I had some calls to make. One of them was to the court office about the restraining order I applied for against our vandal. The last time we had a court date, everything had been cancelled again, due to our province’s extended restrictions. I was told everything was deferred to after April 23rd, and to call around them. Well, that was on Friday, but I remembered too late in the day, so I called today.
The person I spoke to told me that they were holding court sessions now, and that I have a court date on May 21st. She wanted to check something, though, and said she would call me back.
Which is when I found out that the file had actually been in court on Friday. Our vandal was represented by a lawyer. The court offices informs the lawyers when things change, but people who don’t have representatives have to call themselves to keep updated. :-/
Nothing came of it, other than the new date, and it’s just on the morning docket. It will likely go to a trial date after that. One of the possibilities she said that might come out of it is a mutual restraining order. He stays away from us, we stay away from him. Before our move, I was in a situation where I agreed to one of those, and I regretted it. The type of restraining order I applied for would mean our vandal would have to stop drinking – and provide proof of that regularly – and have his guns removed. I believe his drinking has a lot to do with his behaviour. He often sounds drunk in those bizarre messages he’s been leaving with my mother. I would hope if he were at least sober, he might finally get the help he needs. It would, however, drag things on longer. His having a lawyer, and our not being able to afford one. I have LegalShield, which gives me free, unlimited phone consultations, among other things. If I need a lawyer to represent me in court, I would get a discounted price, but we don’t have the funds to spare to begin with, so that’s a moot point. I’m not going to let what he’s doing to us financially ruin my family, even if he’s willing to financially ruin himself, apparently. He has no defense, really. About the only thing a lawyer can do is drag it on. That’s just going to cost him more money – and he’s already said that he’s willing to sell his farm and be homeless, so he can sue me, my mother and my siblings.
I wonder what his wife thinks of that. :-/
Anyhow.
After that, there was an unplanned trip into town, and then a stop at the post office. We crossed paths with our vandal in the process, but only passing him on the road. I could see him well enough to tell that he recognized our vehicle, too. He lives near enough that, when I was working outside later one, I could hear him and his chainsaw, as he cut wood.
A part of me wonders how it would work out, if he really did follow through with his threats. He’s already got his silly suit against me, wanting me to pay him for things that aren’t his, and that I don’t claim to own in the first place. What can he do by going after me? We own nothing, so we have nothing to lose. He’s the one willing to bankrupt himself. And if he does end up selling his farm to pay for lawyers, well… we won’t have him living so close and creeping through the bushes from the road, and whatnot.
What a mess.
Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with things as they come.
Once at home, though it’s been a pretty chilly day, I did get to start on one project outside.
The girls had gone out for a walk and excitedly told me I needed to go outside – with a camera!
You know those garlic in the snow I got a picture of this morning?
There’s more of them now!
The two on the left where not there this morning!
We also have a first appearance.
One of our muscari (grape hyacinth) has emerged! The first of (hopefully!) 200. :-D
Though today has stayed just below freezing, it was enough that a lot of areas warmed up and the snow melted. Including roofs.
Long before we moved out here, the storage house got a new roof, but the eaves troughs were never reattached. In fact, the other side has none at all. So most of the snow melting off the roof just drips straight down.
(Also, that wasp nest is a couple of years old and empty)
Which made for an interesting double layer of icicles on one of the step below. :-D
Unfortunately, ice has also formed directly on the grape vines at ground level.
If these have survived the winter, we really need to find a better spot to transplant them!
The nearby spirea can handle the ice just fine!
It’s like the cross bar on the grape vine support is exactly under the drip line! :-D
The cats, meanwhile, are wisely staying out of the wind! I was surprised and pleased to see Butterscotch in there, with her boy Nutmeg. :-)
It’s so awesome to be seeing anything growing in the weather we’ve been having! Talk about resilient! :-)
We were supposed to get rain, first, but if we did, it wasn’t much. Not a lot of snow, either, but we’re supposed to get more, later in the week. These are our “April showers” that will hopefully lead to May flowers. :-)
I managed to snag a photo of Ginger this morning!
He has been very active, so it’s been hard to get photos! :-D
As squirmy as he was while I tried to get that photo, it was no comparison to Beep Beep.
I hadn’t even tried to pet her. As soon as she saw me taking pictures of Ginger, she started rolling around like mad, beeping for attention!
When I came outside, I saw Ginger’s brothers and Junk Pile coming out of the cat’s house, while his mom emerged from the shelf shelter by the sun room door. I’m not sure where Rosencrantz emerged from! :-D
You can see the chickadee on the bird feeder platform, and if you look carefully, you’ll see another one in the lilac bush, just under the thicker branches.
The snow almost made even the ugly fence look pretty!
I so look forward to when we can take that fence out!
The little garlics peeking through the mulch are visibly bigger than when we first spotted them! Thankfully, they should be able to handle this weather just fine. Likewise, the onion starts in the sun room are doing quite well. The temperatures in there don’t go below freezing (and the trays also have heat from below), but it gets chilly enough that if we had the tomatoes or squash in there, we’d have to bring them into the house for the night. The sun room still manages to stay warmer overnight than the old kitchen!
I spotted the shy calico disappearing under the fence on the far end of my mother’s “living fence” of hawthorn, carigana and oaks.
One of these months, I’ll get to cleaning up around the collapsing log cabin, and that corner of the fence. The chain link just sort of got dropped to the ground after the last fence post, so the junk there, and on the other side of the cabin, act as a sort of fence on their own. Once it’s cleaned out, if the renter’s cows get into the outer yard again, there will be nothing that can stop them from getting into the inner yard. Another reason to fill in any gaps, should the electric fence fail again.
I do love seeing the cows, and the few times they have gotten through, they did a great job of eating the overgrown areas in the outer yard, which in turn reduces the fire hazard in those areas. :-)
By the time I was done my rounds, the cats were making their way back into their shelter. I think it’s even dark enough for the light sensor on the timer to turn on the ceramic heater bulb.
Those things have been so handy, I think we will pick up more!
As I write this, we are at -3C/27F with a wind chill of -11C/12F. It’s the wind that’s more of an issue than the snow or the temperatures. Meanwhile, short range forecasts have us at 1C/34F over the next couple of days, with a sudden leap to 15C/59F on Thursday – only to drop to -3C over night, with more snow into Friday. Which is supposed to reach a high of 2C/35F, so it’s all going to melt away very quickly. Long range forecasts show rain and snow in the first days of May.
Somewhere in there, we have to get our septic tank emptied, and get those loads of garden soil delivered. There are things we need to be able to direct sow two weeks before last frost, and everything we are planting this year depends on having that soil available.
It feels like we’re starting to cut it close. Even with the snow, though, we’ve had enough warm temperatures that they should be able to load the soil into their trucks by now. I need to remember to make some calls tomorrow and find out.
It seems the more we get these little snowfalls, the more antsy I am to get gardening! :-D
My older daughter and I headed out for a walk, and we decided to go ahead and remove the plastic covering our garlic beds.
When looking up how to plant winter garlic, all the resources said to cover the garlic with a heavy layer of mulch.
What none of them did was mention when to take off the mulch in the spring. I knew the mulch was removed, because all the videos and photos I saw that were taken later in the growing season showed the garlic growing out of bare soil. No mulch in sight. It took some dedicated searching, but I finally found resources that said to remove the mulch after overnight temperatures were consistently above -6C/21F. Looking at our long range forecasts, we seem to be at that point, as overnight temperatures are generally supposed to stay above freezing. We’ve started by just removing the plastic for now, though. We’re supposed to get some much needed rain tomorrow, and have decided to leave the mulch a bit longer. Right now, it’s keeping the beds from drying out, like everything else has done this spring. With so little snow over the winter, and very little precipitation so far this spring, every little bit of moisture is precious.
When I dug these beds out, I moved the soil to one side, put the contents of our compost heap on the bottom, added straw on top, then put the soil back, including the soil that was in what are now paths. I dug those areas down to the gravel, using it to raise the garlic beds higher, then filled the space with scrap wood to create the paths.
I won’t be adding another path on the other side of the third bed, which means I’ll only have what soil I take off the top. I’ll be emptying out our compost heap into the bottom, then add in the mulch from the garlic beds, before putting the soil back. I don’t think it’ll be as high as the other beds, but hopefully we’ll have our loads of garden soil delivered soon, so I’ll be able to top it off with that. The mulch will probably be removed before then, and I’ll just move it onto the paths at first.
We’ve had quite a few warm days. I think I’ll call the company up in the next day or two and see if their soil is thawed out enough to load into their trucks or not.
I might be just a little bit excited about getting that soil! :-D
I was so excited to finally get our bulbs this morning!
Here are the three varieties of garlic we ordered.
I appreciate how they add things to the label, like “best for roasting” , “rich, spicy flavour” and “big cloves with bold flavour”.
This is what 1 pound of each variety looks like. I wasn’t sure how many bulb heads or cloves that would translate into. That was the main reason I wasn’t sure if the two beds I’d prepared for them would be enough. At least I was reasonably sure it wasn’t going to be too much space! :-)
Today turned out to be a very windy day, so my daughter and I broke apart the cloves inside the house.
Those old take out containers were perfect for keeping the varieties organized!
Also, they made the house smell absolutely amazing!
I had been watering the prepared beds, to try and get moisture down to the layer of compost and straw buried inside. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that as often as I’d wanted to, so I gave them another thorough soak.
The frame used as a guide to dig 4′ x 8′ beds fit in the next space, inches to spare between it and the ring around the new compost pile. It was ready, just in case I needed a third bed.
Thankfully, I didn’t!
Porcelain Music Garlic
The first variety I planted was Music. Directions for planting hard neck garlic I have looked up, say to plant cloves 4 – 8 inches apart, in rows about 12 – 18 inches apart. Since we are doing beds rather than rows, I laid them out in a roughly 6 inch grid. The soil is so soft here, I was able to plant the by just pushing my gloved fingers in to the correct depth, without the need for any tools.
Purple Stripe Garlic
With the number of cloves we got from the Purple Stripe, my grid wasn’t quite as even at the end. :-D The corners on this bed seemed like they would collapse a bit, so I moved the cloves that would have been planted there to the other side.
Once the two varieties were planted, I added boards to mark where the grid ended, and the third variety, which would be in both beds, started.
Racombole Garlic
The last ones to plant were Racombole. Which sounds like a Pokemon.
The Racombole turned out to have a lot more cloves, including more smaller ones. It was almost like soft neck garlic that way. So these were planted slightly closer together. More like 4 inches apart, rather than 6. I probably shouldn’t have bothered to plant the smallest ones, but I didn’t want to waste a single clove!
Those boards across the beds also came in very handy to put a foot on to brace myself, making it easier for my short little arms to reach the middle. ;-)
Planting in these beds really demonstrated for me that building much higher raised beds for accessibility is a very good idea!
The next step was to add the mulch, and this is where the wind became a real potential problem.
Thankfully, I thought to put the chopped up straw on a tarp.
It was easy to slide the whole thing into the path between the beds. I could then grab handfuls, keeping them low and out of the wind as much as I could, to spread out.
I then had to rush to give the mulch a soak with the hose, more to weigh the mulch down than anything else! As you can see, the wind was already starting to blow the straw away!
The last step was to cover the beds with plastic – which the wind certainly made challenging! Thankfully, we’ve found a couple of rolls of plastic while cleaning up the house and basements, so we have plenty, and I could unroll it directly on the mulch, adding weights as I did.. The plastic is actually folded in half on the roll, and I didn’t bother to unfold it, so this is a double layer of plastic on the beds.
As you can see, those board across the beds came in handy for the weights, too!
The plastic isn’t something I’ve seen suggested, in general, but we are in zone three, and most of the places I’ve looked up are in at least a zone 6. While October is the month for planting hard neck garlic for them, we probably should have planted these at the end of September – and would have, if they had not been back ordered.
The issue is overnight temperatures. We’re consistently hovering just below freezing. In the long range forecasts, our highs for the day will be just barely above freezing.
There are a few things going for these beds that should help with our planting this late in our zone. Burying the organic matter at the bottom of the beds means there should be some warmth generated as they break down, just as it would have if it were in a compost pile. The mulch will also help regulate the temperatures and, finally, the plastic should help keep things a bit on the warm side. I don’t want it warm enough for the garlic to start sprouting, but they do need to start their growth below ground before winter temperatures set in.
I might remove the plastic later on. Snow also acts as an insulator, plus these beds should not need any watering throughout the growing season. Between normal precipitation and the mulch, they should have enough moisture. Letting the snow cover the beds would give them that first burst of moisture in the spring, and the beds being slightly raised means they should thaw out faster than the ground surrounding them. However, the plastic will also keep the moisture they already have from drying out before the snow falls, and will help the soil warm up even faster in the spring, giving the garlic a chance to start growing a bit earlier. I would then remove the plastic once I saw that greens were making their way through the mulch.
My mother grew garlic in the old kitchen garden, but she never used mulch or plastic or any of the other techniques I am using that irritates her so much. :-D So I can’t go by how she did things, in past years.
So if there are any experienced garlic growers here, I would love to hear how you have done it! And would you leave the plastic, or take it off before the snow falls?
I’m really looking forward to seeing how these do. When it comes time to harvest them next year, we will be looking to save the largest bulbs for planting. Hopefully, we’ll have enough large ones to have more to plant than what we started with.
Just minutes ago, we saw our mystery critter again – this time out by the compost pile!
We ended up bringing the DSLR, with it’s 700mm lens, and tripod over to try and zoom in for some pictures.
Unfortunately, the window we were looking through is the one that was not replaced, when all the others were. It has a sheet of plexiglass mounted on the inside, to keep the drafts out. Which means that there was nothing we could do to keep the auto focus from focusing on the glass, instead of the critter. I even tried manual focus, and the pictures I got were actually worse.
So these are the best of the bunch. I cropped the photos and resized them, but that’s it.
The question is: what is it?
It was eating grass and what I think were dandelion leaves. In one of the photos, it looks like it has a stuffed cheek!
It’s surprisingly large. About the size of our big skunk, but bulkier. Almost as big as a beaver! It kinda has a beaver shape, too, but the tail is completely different.
So it is a gopher? Groundhog? Prairie Dog?
Whatever it is, it’s adorable!
In other things, I just finished making our fall plantings order from Vesey’s. This is what we have ordered (all links should open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!):
Fall garlic collection 2: This collection of hard neck garlic includes Porcelain Music, Rocambole and Marble Purple Stripe. The Purple Stripe is supposed to be really good for roasting. The collection has 1 pound of each. We are planning to plant these where we currently have the beets and carrots.
The rest that we ordered are flowers.
Muscari: aka Grape Hyacinth. I’ve wanted these since I was a kid! When we lived in Victoria, BC, they grew everywhere, like weeds. I loved them! We’ve ordered 2 packages of 100 bulbs.
The girls picked the rest.
Snow Crocus Collection: “This collection contains 105 bulbs including 25 Dorothy and 20 each of Blue Pearl, Tricolour, Snowbunting and Spring Beauty Snow Crocus.” Our plan is to mix these bulbs with the Muscari, then plant them randomly in the areas we have picked for them.
Double Tulip Collection: “This collection contains 58 bulbs, 8 of Black Hero, Pamplona & Vanilla Coup and 10 each of Pinksize, Orca and Brownie Double Tulips.” The girls aren’t big fans of the typical tulip shape, but they really love the more unusual shapes.
Speaking of unusual tulip shapes, definitely click on the next link!
Bulls Eye Tulip: We got 1 package of 8 bulbs of these. What an unusual tulip! I can hardly wait to see how they grow.
Eye of the Tiger Iris: They could have had so many punny names for this one… :-D This one comes in a package of 15. We do have some irises in the flower garden the bird feeder stand is currently in. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember! Only 2 of them bloomed this year, and they were done so fast, my daughters never saw them!
Gardenia Daffodil: These come in a pack of 6, and quite different from the usual yellow daffodils I’m used to seeing. When we lived in a PMQ in Victoria, BC, there was a field between our duplex and the military hospital that was just filled with bright yellow daffodils. It should be interesting if these will have the same spreading habit!
And spreading is something we actually want, and they will be planted with that in mind. Especially for the muscari and crocuses. For those, we are hoping they will form a floral carpet to fill in areas between trees, so we don’t have to mow such awkward places.
For our zone, we expect these to be shipped to arrive in the second half of September, in time for immediate planting.
The Re-Farmer 