I Finally Did It!

Not my garden, but hopefully what will be growing next spring!

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. I am not a gardener. However, I love the look that pretty plants give a home and so I keep trying. I took advantage of the extra time my extended weekend gave me to plant the iris and daffodil bulbs that I've had for a few weeks now.

I have no idea how they'll look when they bloom next spring (other than the general purple and yellow, of course) or if they will even make it, but I must admit I felt pretty accomplished.

Procrastination
The chore actually didn't take very long. I had been putting this project off--mostly because I was afraid of how long it would take, but also because bulbs need to be planted after the first freeze of the year. In Oklahoma that usually means after Thanksgiving. Or, as was the case this year, the day of Thanksgiving (every one of my tomatoes died in the freeze, the only tomatoes the plants produced all year).

Getting it Done
On Sunday I called my friend Amanda over for motivational support and got started while she was still on her way. By the time she arrived I was about a third of the way done with digging the trench. Luckily the section of the yard I was working on had very few roots or rocks so the digging was pretty easy. Amanda had given me a bunch of iris bulbs that she dug out of her flowerbeds so I had about triple the amount of those as I did daffodils.

The instructions for the daffodils said to plant them about six inches deep. So I dug a trench along my front walk and put the iris bulbs all along the walk with the daffodil bulbs interspersed. Thanks to the Oklahoma wind my trench kept filling up with leaves. Once I got all the bulbs in I covered them with some of the leaves (after all they were very determined to stay in the trench) then filled in the entire trench with dirt. Hopefully, the grass will grow back in before I need to mow again. I also need to buy some dirt to cover a couple of the areas a little better.

A few things I learned:

• Dirt is very cold in November. My hands were numb by the time I finished.
• A 10' long trench that is only 6" deep does not take very long to dig. Maybe an hour. And 19 daffodil bulbs are not enough (it was a good thing I had plenty of iris bulbs).
• The reason there is never enough dirt left to fill a hole back in is because it all ends up under your nails. Seriously, wear gloves.
• I have very sweet neighbor kids. About three of them asked if I needed help.