Planted our first planting today.
A picture story.
Corms in the furrows.
Enjoy.
Bernie
Gladiolus planting
Close-up of large corms. Three rows of these.
Edit to add, furrows are about 8" deep.
This message was edited Feb 18, 2007 2:50 PM
Close-up of bulbets. They are just poured in the furrow.
Most will bloom this year & produce many larger corms.
In goes the T-Tape. Also put some fertilizer in the trench.
They are then covered with about 2" of soil. After they come out of the ground, we rake in more soil. We do this until there is a mound around the stems. It keeps them upright when they start to bloom. Some oe these will be 5' tall when blooming.
Sorry no picture.
That is great. I love glads and my Son planted 42 of them for me yesterday. How many did you plant? It looks like a lot more than 42. What kind do you have?
Do you produce these for selling? Also, what is T-tape?
These are for selling at Farmers Market. We will be planting 25000 bulbs in 3 different plantings. These are mixed colors. We bought separate colors originally, but mixed them as that what works best for selling.
I have about 19 varieties that I keep separate, as I am increasing them. We still sell the blooms though.
T-Tape is a small plastic hose, with holes every 8, 12 or 16 inches. Works like a soaker only way better. T-Tape is a brand as there are others.
We use lots of it. Don't take a lot of water to get things nice & wet.
Bernie
what is t-tape made of? sounds like an underground soaker hose kinda thing?
yeah, inquiring minds want to know...
Good information!
Good photos -
perhaps this should go to the glad forum?
Yes, there wasn't a Glad forum when this was started.
WOW, look at your soil. ! ! ! ! !
Cool pictoral, thanks for sharing and thank you 4paws for resurecting it.
Oh, thank goodness someone pointed out this wasn't a new thread! I was almost to d-mail you, Bernie, just to say, "It's February in Minnesota, for heaven's sakes!" Ha ha!
Now that I see it, April makes a lot more sense!
Lori,
It's 23º, so maybe there's hope. LOL!
Bernie's got me dreaming of being the Glad/Dog Lady of Hoopa.
Guys are out cutting down brush right now!
oh boy, oh boy, oh boy...!
Bernie, what do you do to keep your glads from falling over? Plant deeply?? Love your rows!! :)
Susan
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/674551/ Ohh found this thread! :)
Susan
Bernie, I am planting glads for the first time. I am going to leave them in the ground, others in my area say they mostly always come back. I know you cut yours, is it ok for me to plant them like you do and cover a little at a time? They would end up covered 10" deep next year, will they come up from being that deep?
Thanks for info,
chris
I don't know, but I am guessing they would come up.
Thanks, I just read the other threads that you say plant deep. I will def. give it a shot, sounds like a great way to keep them up.
Sorry about redundant question...not enough coffee before I typed.
Thanks again,
chris
Bernie, how many glads will fit in a 25' row? Or better, about how many feet of row do I need for 100 glads?
You can plant about 7 or 8 to 1 foot of row.
Oh good...that's closer than I've read. Thanks, Bernie!
Bernie,
I can see how you would be pretty busy in the fall harvesting, washing, and curing 25,000 corms!. I have about 500 and it is work.
We buckled down & it really didn't take to long.
Looking forward to another year. I am going to add some Dahlias to the cut flowers.
New experience.
Bernie
Bernie, do you lift the corms with machinery?
Also do you plant the corms by hand or do you have a mechanical planter?
I imagine the furrows are made with a furrower and tractor, I couldn't image how you would do all that by hand!
It took awhile but I found this thread.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/426153/
We use our potato digger to lift them. It is tractor run, a spade goes in the ground & the soil & bulbs go on a shaker chain. Soil falls through, bulbs are dropped on top of the ground.
As for planting, they are all set by hand. Even in Florida where they plant millions for cut flowers, they are set by hand.
I tried a hand potato planter one year. The kind you jab in the ground for each seed piece. They didn't get deep enough & some came up crooked. Works better when the root side is down.
Bernie
Quite a job to set all those by hand, but getting them the right way up is important! Potatoes are set mechanically, they really are best with most eyes to the top, but will cope, Glads wouldn't!
I have seen machinery for planting cauliflower plants etc, someone feeds plants into a planter, not sure just how it works but I saw it on TV. Now if you could do the same with corms AND keep them upright......
Do you use a plough type furrower to cover them, I guess it would have to be lowered to different depths for hilling.
We have one for planting plants, would you like to buy it ? Setting plants by hand works better.
We cover them with our cultivator tractor.
CountryGardens, how does the planting go this season? When will your last planting be?
We planted April 15th, May 1st, May 25th. Also planted the babies May 18.
We have one more planting for about June 10. Also still plan on ordering some new ones. They will go in on June 10 & 25.
I am going to order First Lady, June, Laurita, Romance, Tampico, Velvet Eyes, & Zorro.
What do you think ?
How are yours doing ?
Did you sell a lot on your online thing ?
Have a great day!
Bernie
Our soil isn't purple like the picture shows, it is really black!
This message was edited May 27, 2007 6:01 PM
This thread is great I wish I had found it in April (two years ago). Next year I will plant deeper, closer together and at a few differant intervals, of course it is just for my own enjoyment. I greatly appreciate all of this information.
Serena
I wish I could make this a sticky on my page, instead of having to find it or wait for someone to post.
:-)
I have planted deep and it worked out very well. Very few fell over, I did tie a couple when I realized the were leaning way to much.
Is it normal for them to start growing straight and strong, then make a turn like a snake?
Those are the ones I had to tie. Then when it rained real hard, it snapped where it was tied.
It was ok though, cause those were the ones I brought inside.
chris
Hi, I have a bunch of glad bulbs that I never got in the ground this year. Is it better to plant them now and let them get a couple months growth before frost or just wait until spring and hope some of them are still alive? Thanks, Dave
I would plant them. How long before your frost ?
Bernie
Hard to tell the way the weather is these days but maybe mid to late october. Guess I'll put them in this weekend, thanks!
I always wanted to know how bulbs were planted. Do you think a potato digger would work for harvesting lilies? What type of equip. do you use to spray with and do you spray while the glads. are in flower?
So you plant every Spring, harvest the flowers for sale, and then dig and sell the corms in the Fall?
I occasionally have a dream about a hobby farm, but just getting a 18' x 7' bed is a lot of work!
Thanks,
Andrew
We don't sell any corms. We need them for the next year.
I plant the glads in rows 38" apart. So it's 4 rows of glads, 2 rows of something short like potatoes, then 4 more rows of glads & so on. I have a six row sprayer, so I drive down the no glad rows & spray 2 rows on either side. I spray about once a week once the spikes start showing. I think the frost last Friday night put an end to the thrips. They can't take freezing.
Bernie