How Many!

When we visited the Malvern Autumn Show last month, one of our objectives was to purchase a quantity of daffodil bulbs to plant up in the orchard.

We didn't want anything fancy, as the orchard sward is far from manicured. We just wanted some bog standard daffodil bulbs to dot about and provide a bit of early spring colour next year.

30% advised that there were large bags of bulbs on sale at the local Nursery, so it was agreed that we would get them from there, rather than lug them around the Three Counties Show Ground.

About a week ago my dear wife turned up with the aforementioned bulbs and I noticed, not one, but two huge nets of daffodil bulbs. The labels didn't state the quantity, but my guess was that each bag held close to one hundred bulbs.  For the mathematically challenged, this meant that I needed to plant close to two hundred bulbs.

I do have a bulb planter. It looks like an over-sized apple corer, and is supposed to remove a plug of soil, so the bulb can be inserted to a depth of about five inches. The plug is then replaced ... job done. I did try it in the still dry orchard turf and rapidly decided that I would be suffering from a repetitive strain injury of some description if I used the bulb planter.  I can report that my next action was to hide it in the dark recesses of the potting shed, hopefully never to be found again.

My revised plan was to use a spade to cut around three edges of a small turf, around 1' square. I would then slide the spade under the turf to separate it from the ground. It could then be peeled back. I would be left with a patch of bare earth to plant four or five daffodil bulbs. The flap of earth could then be put back in place and gently firmed in with my boot.

So, for the past couple of days I have been using this method to plant the daffodil bulbs up in the orchard. Thirty five flaps of turf were peeled back, and approximately one hundred and sixty bulbs have been gently inserted in to Mother Earth.

After all of that effort, they had better look bloody amazing in the spring!

In other news, Grubby Jason and his crew turned up on Tuesday morning to kindly repair and repoint the brick edging of our patio.  The hot dry summer had caused the soil under the lawn to shrink back and this had disturbed the edging. I was pleasantly surprised that he was willing to sort out this problem, as most companies would have said, "what do you expect, it's been caused by the weather, not our workmanship." 

I can also report that the dishwasher has died and a new one has been ordered.