Still planting anyone?

I am, though I expect I won't be much longer. Over this weekend I have planted 50 crocuses, 100 over the past week. I also planted 20 iris reticulata -- I have never grown them before but got them on the recommendation of Kenton and Vadap. I like the idea that they are the earliest bulb to come out.
I also have planted 8 eremus ( foxtail) lilies. We will see if they can survive in the less than full sun I have provided. I have two more to go. I hope I will get the chance.
I planted the last 4 foxtail lilies on Thursday or Friday and then watered them fairly well. I was planning to go out the next day and plant some crocuses among them. But when I poked my trowel into the ground, it was frozen solid. What I learned is that where the ground is wet, it is frozen. Where it is dry I can still plant.
It is supposed to snow here on Monday so I am hoping to go out and plant the last two foxtail lilies before it all hits. Or perhaps tomorrow morning before going off to Santa Fe.
I still have martagon lilies and garlic to plant! I have a trench dug for the garlic but need to put in compost and other ammendments.
This is what you call last minute gardening. But as they say, if it weren't for the last minute nothing would ever get done. Am I the only one still planting? I suspect those of you in Canada and Montana have had to give it up except for greenhouse gardening.

You would be right about Montana for me, except Jenny just gave me some horseradish roots. I am going to poke around under the mulch tomorrow to see if I can find some where to plant them. The ground should not be frozen yet under heavy mulch, I hope.

No pick ax for me!

Horseradish is great, but if your soil is frozen under the mulch you can plant it in a bucket or a big pot left over from planting a tree or shrub. And that may be better. I love horseradish, but I put some in my lily bed and have been fighting to conrol it ever since. In the literature it is highly recommended to plant horseradish in a bucket ( which can be buried in the soil) rather than in the garden. I have two large pots with horseradish that have been growing just fine for a couple of years.
On the other hand, I am guessing that deer don't like horseradish leaves. But I don't know. Maybe you could let horseradish take over your entire yard.
Probably not a good idea.

It is awfully appealing if the deer do not like it! But I do not want horseradish to crowd out my poppies.

They (the local gardening center here) tell me it's too late to plant now, boo hoo. But, they have live reindeer there, so whoo hooo!

To late to plant what? Winter sewing works great all over the place. If you can dig you can plant trees, shrubs and bulbs.
Deer supposedly don't like crocus, mulch!

Deer leave the crocus alone, and definitely do not touch my daffodils, which are poisonous to them. Tulips, on the other hand, sigh.

Up here you can lose bulbs if you plant them too late and they have not gotten their little roots happily established before our long gruesome winter.

Hopefully that isn't true here. I don't think it is. They ship bulbs up to Dec.1. I have planted trees and shrubs in December if I can dig a hole, hopefully the same thing works with bulbs. I will let you know in the spring.

Well, as much as you have been planting, I think we can look forward to a spring when you have early bulb flowers too, which you have been lacking in Alamos in the past. I can see you smiling already...

Well, that's why I'm on DG! You all can help me figure out if I can still plant anything. I should re-phrase, I didn't ask the garden center if I could still plant anything, I asked if I could still plant peonies. That answer was no. We have had snow and freezes already... What do you all think?

Brenda

Are they just tubers or rootts, or are they in a nursery pot. If they were potted and I could make a hole in a good place, I would plant them. I guess I would plant them in a flower pot if they aren't in one all ready. You can give them more TLC in a flower pot. But if they are just the tubers -- and you haven't bought them yet, I would not do it. It is pretty late. The stuff I am planting is stuff I had ordered that got here ages ago and I still hadn't planted it.

Thanks, Pajaritomt. I think I'll wait until spring, but I can't wait to have peonies! That's something we couldn't grow in AZ!

Oh, you will love having peonies. Be sure to give them lots of sun and excellent soil.

Okay, will do!

Not still planting - but still harvesting! Made a roast yesterday with carrots & onions from my garden. The ground is finally starting to freeze though, and I did have to tromp through the snow to get to the veggies, so I may have to dig everything up & keep it inside :0(.

I think it is good to leave them in the garden as long as possible. I think they keep better there. But when the snow is a food deep they are hard to find!

Oh I agree about keeping them in the ground! The next best thing is an old fashioned root cellar. I wish my dirt-floored crawl space were easier to get to, I might seriously consider using it.

Maybe you could hire someone to hollow it out. I know some people who built a fairly large wine cellar under their long standing house. I would love a root cellar too, but hollowing one out of my solid rock yard would require a jack hammer just for a small one. I understand you can bury a refrigerator in your yard with the door up and use it for a root cellar.

OMG I never heard of burying a fridge! I wonder if it works.

My crawl space is accessed by climbing over my washer & dryer & opening a door halfway up the basement wall. If I could get it hollowed out, my basement would be twice the size it is now. I could really use the space so I have thought about it many times, but it will probably never happen.

I think the buried refrigerator really works. But you would have to disable the doors in case a kid tried to crawl in. It would be evenly cool, though. Hollowing out your basement would probably work better, but might not be cheap.

Might depend on how cold it is where you bury the fridge. I can't see bulbs making it in there if we hit 20 to 30 below for a week here...

I have a crawl space under my house and have been debating that very thing for a future project.

Huh, a root cellar. I've never really thought about that, although I think my Grandma probably had one. What a great (old) idea!

Brenda

Root cellars are wonderful, whether under the house or in the side of a hill. There are ways to create small ones in your soil if it is diggable. ( Bury a galvanized can in the soil, or old refrigerator. )

My friend has a large concrete root cellar. She has hers vented, but covers the vent in really cold weather like now. It is a great thing to have.

I agree completely but have to use my garage instead. The garage is a nice cool, but not freezing temperature in the winter, but it varies too much and has too many windows for really good storage.