Can you believe it? I ordered over 10,000 flower bulbs and that still wasn’t enough to finish the project I had in mind. I still need about 500 more to finish off the perennial garden.
Luckily the supplier has enough of the variety in question and will send them right away.
Meanwhile, while waiting for the bulbs to arrive, we started another fall project, emptying all of the flower pots and containers.
I always like to save the old potting soil to use in the vegetable garden as a soil conditioner. I also compost all of the stems and leaves.
Here we see some of the pots that have been emptied:
The compost bins are in the background. The potting mix goes into the center bin, while the plant material goes into the two remaining bins.
I always like to use fresh mix in the pots when planting in the spring, since potting mix is sterilized and free from disease and weeds. On occasion,, when I run short of fresh potting mix, I will dip into the compost bin and use some of last years potting soil. So far, I have not had a problem doing this (except for the occasional weed seedling that pops up)
This is a fairly big job to do, especially during this time of the year when there are bulbs to be planted.
There have been years in the past when we waited a little too long in the season to start this job… it’s no fun digging out partially frozen soil from clay pots.
Fortunately, with the warmish weather we’ve had, this project was completed on time. No frozen mess this year!
Bob