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Fall Preparation for Planting

© Clay Higgins

PLANTING FALL BULBS

Fall brings with it many activities necessary for fall bulb planting to assure the following spring blooms. Each fall, I use my mental checklist to get myself ready.

The Checklist:

First on my checklist is to determine where I'm going to plant the bulbs, and most of that is deciding what bulbs that I want to plant and where to plant them.

This year, I've made up my mind to plant many of my miniature and species daffodil bulbs along the east, or the front side of our house at both sides of the entrance. This first picture above was taken while standing on the front patio looking south. The second picture below I took from the same location as the first, except that I was looking North. During the summer, I enhanced this garden area by moving the sidewalk out by about 3 to 5 feet away from the house's foundation planting for its entire 50 foot long length. Since most of the winds come from accross the valley from the west, being on the east side of the house will give them some protection.

Second on my checklist is the preparation of the beds to receive the bulbs. I like to make up the beds two or three months ahead of time, so the bed will have time to "settle-in" before planting. However, most gardeners don't prepare a bed ahead of time, and just go out, dig the holes or trench and plan the bulbs. That works, too.

I talked about how I prepared the beds in my last two articles. My beds are prepared now, but are not what I would have like under ideal conditions. I like double-dug daffodil beds down to 18" to 24" deep. In 2000 I remade many of my beds using the raised bed techniques.

We started out with the natural soil that was moved and added back topsoil with leafgrow, and added in sand, peat and my usual daffodil bed cocktail mix of ingredients and dug it again with the tiller.

Third on my mental checklist is to insure that the bulbs to be planted are "ready." This step is necessary because I dig hundreds of my own bulbs, thin and replant every year. During the summer, some of the bulbs may start showing signs of disease or rot, known as basal rot. In addition, bulbs that I have bought needs to be checked over carefully to insure that they are ready for planting.

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