Bulbs: Fall is coming!, 2 by LeawoodGardener

LeawoodGardener wrote:
I used to be a 'dig and toss' gardener who planted new tulips each fall, then dug up the bulbs in the spring, as soon as the blossoms withered, and put the stems, bulbs and spent flowers in the compost pile.

Savvy DG gardener DonnaMack convinced me to start saving my bulbs several years ago, so now I let the tulips bloom, then wait for the plants to wither and die before digging them. I carefully dig the plants, bulbs and all, and place them on flat cardboard sheets in my cool, dark basement for 3-4 weeks to dry. On a rainy day, I go to the basement and spend my morning taking the dirt and dried stems off the bulbs and sort them by size. The larger bulbs will go into a flower bed and the smaller 'bulblets' will go in a blank space in the border, where they will (hopefully) grow larger.

I place the bulbs in plastic crates (the same crates many of them came in originally) or cardboard flats, sorted by color, and store them in the basement until it's time to plant them again in October.

Today that was my 'rainy day' activity for Victor, the guy who helps me in my garden one day a week, and me. We sat and cleaned/sorted tulips for two hours while it drizzled outside. Neither one of us much like doing it, but it's nice to have the bulbs ready to go come October.