Wow! The 90 degree days and dry weather really jumped out at us. Our bulbs are going dormant all over the place and we have to harvest in many areas two to three weeks before we planned. Our morning meetings are cut short and food is brought to us by Amanda as we all work around the clock to catch up on a task that could easily get away from us.

Since we are harvesting bulbs, let me mention a bit about the depth of bulbs when planting them. As many of you know, the general rule is that bulbs should be planted at a depth of about three times the height of the bulb. Another HUGE bulb farmer in the northwest answered my ignorant question with the answer his bulb growing father gave him, making a gesture by turning his hand sideways with fingers out and saying that was a good depth. Those rules seem to work well with daffodils, tulips, hyacinths etc. With amaryllis, one generally leaves a little bit of the neck showing, like in our Hardy Amaryllis (Hippeastrum x johnsonii). When it comes to gladiolus, the 3X rule would work, but sometimes people plant glads at deeper depths to ensure heavy flowers have more support above the ground and don't tip over. Our Byzantine glads (Gladiolus x byzantinus) don't really have that problem and we use no stakes, no support, and no special planting depth, yet they stay up perfectly. Another trick with spring planted gladiolus is to plant them at different depths in the same area, giving a longer time period to bloom.

We are all very tired. Off to shower and sleep...my bulb friend and I talked too late last night. Had to check into a hotel at around 1AM in the morning to get back home safe. Looking forward to more sleep tonight.