Our tulip bulb order arrived mid week last week. On Friday the rain stopped, so we got busy in the afternoon, after our usual morning breakfast and grocery shopping.
Then Tom topped the cans off with dirt and set them aside.
It was partly cloudy but about 70 degrees, a perfect afternoon for working in the dirt.
It rained over night but stopped Saturday morning. We had a big football game to watch at noon, so we got busy again. I made a chart of where each color of bulbs would go in the garden. Then with Tom doing much of the work, and me less, we got all of the cans sunk into the garden beds just in time to clean up and be in the house for lunch and football.
The University of Washington Huskies and the University of Oregon Ducks, both top ten nationally ranked, battled it out in a back and forth battle that was only decided in the last few seconds. They were playing in Husky Stadium here in Seattle, and the fans flooded the field as the Huskies won. Great college football.
Sunday was a rest day. We were ready for NFL football as the Seattle Seahawks were playing in Cincinnati at 10:00. It was another back and forth battle, but, alas, Seattle did not pull this one off.
We had planned a little get away after the game, a drive through Maple Valley to the town of Black Diamond, an old coal mining town, to see some autumn color and have coffee and dessert at the 120 year old Black Diamond Bakery.
Since we already have plenty of old stuff, we didn't add to our treasures but had fun looking. Then we chose another rural route home, through more countryside. The big leaf maples are just starting to turn golden, but there was quite a bit of color in the non native tree plantings. Color is late this year.
Now it's Monday. I'm in charge of laundry and dusting. Tom vacuums and does bathrooms. We are going slow today, but it will eventually get done. It's a rainy day again.
Your Tulips will be beautiful come Spring! :)
ReplyDeleteI love how you organize your bulbs. I have been away due to a long illness but an happy you are around.
ReplyDeleteThere's never dull moment for you two. You work hard to give yourself spare time.
ReplyDeleteYou and Tom are such a great team.
ReplyDeleteWe planted the bulbs on Saturday, I did like you put them in the baskets by colours and my husband had put them in the ground.
ReplyDeleteYour get out was at a very nice place and I can see that you had a nice piece of cake lol 😆 !
I went once to Quebec and USA to see the Autumn leaves colours and it was beautiful.
I wondered if the bulbs were left in the containers over winter, but I see you place in the ground. Do you lift them in the spring as well? I ask because I've only ever planted directly into the ground here and just left them over winter.
ReplyDeleteIt is a lot of work to maintain your yard and gardens, and as someone else mentioned the two of you make a great team.
I watched the Seahawks game as well, and was hopeful they would pull off the win.
We plant the bulbs in nursery cans each year and we treat tulips as annuals, since they do not persist here year to year. After blooms have faded, we lift the cans and set them in the back of the garden for the bulbs to dry and harden off, then we "harvest" them. There are lots of small bulbs now, many of which will not bloom again. We then take the old bulbs to the Whidbey Island garden, where we plant them in the fall into sandy beach soil where they get almost no water during the summer. Some persist there.
DeleteThat's very interesting. It's been a number of years since I've grown tulips - now I'm curious why ours lasted at least a few years. Nice that they'll survive on the island.
DeleteDoe the Black Diamond Bakery still have the meat loaf sandwich on the menu? We used to do a 60 mile bike ride down to Enumclaw and back finishing at the bakery and our reward was their meatloaf sandwich!
ReplyDeleteJim, I don't know. We were only looking at desserts. :-)
DeleteTulips in containers and then in beds...cool. I usually just plant them in my decorative pots on the deck. I hope in a few days to have enough strength to clean our everything and move the citrus inside.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting tulip program! I planted a bunch this year thinking I would try again. I thought the moles were eating the bulbs, and kind of gave up on tulips, never thinking outside the box and considering them as annuals! That is a TON of tulips! I thought I was doing good doing around a hundred bulbs. You guys are amazing!
ReplyDeleteI used to have beautiful tulips when I lived in mid-Vermont. Just planted them and they came up year after year. When I moved to northern VT and in a mountain area, I never saw another tulip growing in my yard. Field mice, I think, ate the bulbs right up. I had big swaths of daffodils though so that made for a cheery spring.
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