HOW TO USE A BULB AUGER (AND PLANT BULBS IN MINUTES)

Last spring Mr. Much More Patient looked out the window at our still-gray landscape and asked why we didn't have more daffodils. They are a good bulb to grow here because no critters will touch them. Still, I don't want to add too many more to the gardens, as keeping them healthy requires leaving the foliage standing to die back naturally, and I don't love that look in my garden. (In fact I often cut off the leaves before I should, knowing full well this will affect their life span.) But we do have a lot of wooded areas that are quite bright in spring and would look lovely with some color. And I'd never have to worry about the foliage looking tatty.

So I told Mr. Much More Patient we could have mass quantities of daffodils if he didn't balk at the cost and would agree to help plant them.

And that's how we ended up planting 400 daffodils this week.

When I'm planting daffodils in the garden proper, I like to dig big holes and plant them en masse, but that approach wouldn't work well for the woods. For one, there are a lot of roots around and digging big holes is not easily done. I also bought varieties that are supposed to naturalize (i.e. multiply) more easily, so wanted to give them enough room to do their thing in the future. That meant planting them individually and there is no better way to do that than with a bulb auger.

Think of a bulb auger as a really big drill bit for a power drill. They come in different lengths, but most seem to be in the 24-inch range. In my opinion, bigger is better because that means less bending over. It does take a little practice to get the hang of the auger though, so here are a few tips to make sure you don't spin your hand off.

Set the drill torque on the drill setting and on a lower speed if you have a variable-speed drill. 

Put the auger in the drill the same way you'd fit in any drill or screwdriver bit. Then you want to turn the torque setting to the drill setting. If you have a drill with multiple speeds, put in on a lower speed setting. Our Milwaukee drill has two speeds and we run it on the slower speed for this.

Drilling a hole with a bulb auger is not the same as drilling a hole in a piece of wood, where you generally want to keep pushing. If you push like heck when you drill a hole in the dirt at some point the dirt (or more likely the roots, rock or something under the soil) is going to win and the auger will stop spinning but your arm won't. I'm not kidding ... your arm keeps spinning. And it hurts. This is why you want it on a lower speed.

In order to avoid that, work the auger up and down as you drill, gradually working it down into the soil. If it does get stuck, don't try to push through it. Reverse the drill, back up a little and then start working up and down again until you've got the hole drilled to the depth you want (about 6 to 8 inches for daffodils, but they aren't overly fussy).

Here's a quick video of the technique. I should add that this soil was in an area where we added quite a bit of soil so it was pretty fluffy (and already mulched with leaves; we were just adding a few bulbs to those we had planted a few days earlier), so it was pretty easy going. You may need two hands on the drill for a lot of conditions and I'd advise two-handing it until you know what you're dealing with.

Doing the up and down motion leaves a lovely little pile of soil around each hole, so it's easy to refill after you put a bulb in the hole. One note: We noticed that we were using up the batteries on the drill quickly when we were whipping through holes so quickly. We went through a battery about every 100 holes. So make sure you have a fully charged battery and if you have a spare battery make sure that's good to go too.

Working with two people we were able to crank out those bulbs in no time, probably about an hour total. Mr. Much More Patient was on drill duty and I plunked the bulbs in the holes and covered  them as I went. I found it was much easier to dump the bulbs into a trug rather than try to fish them out of a bag every time.

There's plenty of time to plant bulbs still. In fact you can pretty much do it as long as you can get in the ground, but planting bulbs in really cold ground, when it's really cold outside, can't be much fun.

If you're in the market for a bulb auger, here are a few to check out.

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FRIDAY FINDS

I'm on a really good streak with books. I'm reading Dear Friend and Gardener: Letters on Life and Gardening and although I'm only halfway through it (I'm taking my time with it, savoring every page), I just know this is going to be one of those books I go back to and may become one of my favorites. It is just letters between famous British gardeners Beth Chatto (who started the "Right plant in the right place" concept/movement) and Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter, but it is absolutely fascinating. It also makes me sad that such exchanges rarely happen. I'll tell you more about it in the future but I can't keep that one under my hat any longer.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum I listened to Andy Weir's The Martian last weekend. This is not something that I'd normally gravitate to but this tale of an astronaut left behind on Mars and forced to survive was compelling and fascinating. There's a movie based on the book coming out in fall and I assume that's why the book, published in 2012, is having a revival. I haven't been so riveted by a book in a long time.

I'm also reviewing a great new coffee table gardening book right now, but I'll tell you about that soon once I've had a chance to really dig in. So far I love it.

In other places around the blogosphere:

New House New Home photo

Heather took a trip to the World Peace Rose Garden in Sacremento and it is gorgeous.

Remember those videos I worked on for Troy-Bilt? Here they are up.
Amend clay soil
Comfrey tea
Crop rotation

Linda has finished her amazing driveway project. Who would have thought a driveway could be this interesting?

I cut back the nepeta that lines the path for the second time this summer. It looks horrible now, but give it 10 days and there will be lovely little balls of new growth. 

Lynne is sharing a list of re-blooming perennials, using one of my favorite tricks. I'm on my second cutting of nepeta this summer and I may get it to bloom again!

Have a great weekend. I can't believe it's mid-August already. More savoring the summer on tap for me!

THE DAY I PRETENDED TO BE A TV GARDENER

You are reading the blog of a movie star.

Well, not quite, but I sort of felt like one for a day. A couple weeks ago I drove 60 miles west to the charming town of Merton, Wisconsin (where I think I actually covered a school board meeting once for one of my first jobs), to help at the grand opening of a Katie's Krops garden and make a few videos for Troy-Bilt in the process. This was part of my relationship with Troy-Bilt as one of their Saturday6 bloggers, but it was the part of the deal I was most looking forward to.

Removing the sod and tilling the beds per Ted's design.

Two quick bits of background for you. Katie's Krops is an organization that helps kids create gardens that feed the community. Founded by young gardener Katie Stagliano, who grew a 40-pound cabbage as part of a school project and realized she could feed hungry people with it, the organization offers financial support, advice, camps and more for young gardeners seeking to make a difference in their communities. 

Ted and me.

Ted is a young Wisconsin gardener who also happened to get bit by the gardening bug through a big cabbage. The garden I spent the day at was entirely Ted's vision. Located on a large plot of land behind a district elementary school, the garden will support area food pantries and 14-year-old Ted's principal said he envisions that kids helping with the garden will not only plant, tend and harvest the food, they will also deliver it to food pantries, help prepare meals with it and serve meals. Truly farm to table.

Ted's principal talks about the project.

Before I tell you more about my day "on set" I should start with a little disclaimer. I was alternately looking forward to it and completely filled with dread. I won't bore you with my personal insecurities but I think most people are a bit self-concious about their appearance (especially on film), their voice (particularly when it's a midwestern twang) and their propensity to screw up. Fortunately there were a great bunch of professionals there who eased my mind about the whole thing and I ended up having a great time and really enjoying myself.

I tried so hard not to talk with my hands. This picture proves that I failed. By the way, I was freezing, but it was much cooler than I expected in the morning and I couldn't wear either of the two jackets I brought because one had a big logo on the front and the other was nylon, which the sound guy said was a no-go.

While I waited to do a few videos, a local Troy-Bilt distributor and a few other people went to work on getting the garden ready. Since it was a giant swath of dead grass when I got there, I was so impressed when 45 minutes later, the sod had been removed and beds were created to Ted's design. Ted, by the way, was stuck in school all day while most of this was going on.

I had worked with the people from Troy-Bilt's promotional arm to come up with some ideas for short video tips ahead of time and in the weeks prior to the filming we ironed out what I would say. Or what I was supposed to say, because mostly I just made sure to hit the main points and ad libbed the rest. I'm pretty sure this gave some of the production people fits, but in they end they were happy with it.

Sad comfrey.

There were some foibles. One of the tips I wanted to give was about using comfrey tea in your garden. I dug up some comfrey and potted it up the night before to bring but by the time we got to that part of the shoot the comfrey was completely flopped and so sad looking. 

They also wanted me to plant a few things on camera as part of a video about crop rotation. They picked up a few vegetable plants at a local nursery and I planted them. And then I dug them up and put them back in their pots and planted them again for a second take. And again. There was one poor kale plant that I planted four times at least, all while trying not to look like a complete dork.

I also "harvested" a bag of Yukon gold potatoes and several beets with the greens still attached. I have doubts how this will work in the videos but maybe there's more to movie magic than I know about.

The crew getting some shots of the garden.

All in all, we whipped through my videos pretty quickly thanks to all that ad libbing and then I hung out and waited for the kids to show up after school. I was very excited to meet Ted, whom I've heard wonderful thinks about, including from Katie, who raved about him when I met her in Charleston.

The kids jumped right into the project. 

Ted's expression when he showed up and saw all the beds created was fantastic. He got the biggest grin and said, "Oh wow, this looks awesome!" Several other kids immediately jumped in, putting together a donated irrigation system and deciding which plants would go where. 

I wish I would have had more time to talk to Ted, but he was the true man of the hour and everyone was demanding his attention. I hope they are having great success with the garden and I predict that next year there will be a lot more garden and a lot less grass.

As for the videos I made, I doubt I'll be able to watch them. I'll just cringe, I'm sure. But I'll let you know when they are online so you can watch me harvest a beet that was in the grocery store just hours before. You know us movie stars, anything for the story!

PLANTING THE WINDOW BOX

After a lot of talking about planting window boxes, the weather finally (if briefly) improved enough to actually do it. This year I aimed for a slightly more restrained color palette (blue/purple, lime green and a touch of orange) and fewer plants. In the past I've jammed so many plants in the window box that I think they had a hard time reaching their potential.

It doesn't look like much right now but in a few weeks it should be full of color and filled out.

It would be great to have mature plants to work with but that's just not possible here, so there's a fair amount of imagination required. Right after planting, the window box looks spartan and a little silly but in a few weeks it will be filled out.

Because of that, I made a sketch with colored pencils first to give me an idea of the overall look. That served as my roadmap for planting.

My sketch is looking a bit worse for wear after being used while I planted the window box. It's no Picasso, but it's enough of a guide to get my thoughts on paper so I have a feel for what it will look like. 

I start with new potting mix in the window box every year, using a combination of Fafard 3B mix, Lucky Frog potting soil, a small amount of well-rotted manure (manure can be heavy and weight is a concern with window boxes), a little chicken grit for extra drainage and some Osmocote time-release fertilizer. I use organic fertilizers on everything I plant in the ground, but I use Osmocote in my planters because it's hard for me to stay on top of regular feeding.

I fill the box about three-quarters of the way with soil, so I have to dig a little to put in plants, but I still have to top it off with more potting mix to fill the holes after planting. If I put any more soil than that in the box to start with, I end up with it going all over the place as I pull it aside to plant.

From there, it's just a matter of filling in the plants. Here's what I used:

• 3 Nicotiana alata lime (grown from seed)
• 2 Verbena bonareinsis Meteor Shower (Proven Winners variety due on the market next year that I'm very excited about; said to grow to 30 inches, perfect for containers)
• 2 Nassella tenuissima (Mexican feather grass)
• 2 Superbena Royale Chambray
• 2 Lemon Licorice Plant
• 2 Nasturtium 'Yeti' (grown from seed)
• 1 Supertunia Morning Glory Charm
• 4 Signet Marigold 'Orange Gem' (grown from seed)

The marigolds may get swapped out. I wanted a little touch of orange in the box, but not an overpowering amount and couldn't decide between the signet marigolds, Calendula 'Geisha Girl' that I also grew from seed or a new Proven Winners Bidens variety (which I decided was too red for this use). If the marigolds don't feel right in there, I'll be happy to swap them out for something else.

I spent a lot of time talking about the importance of texture variety in window boxes the other day and I feel like I've got a good variety here with coarse texture provided by the nicotiana and nasturtium, medium texture with the licorice plant, supertunia and superbena, and fine texture from the Mexican feather grass, verbena bonareinsis and signet marigolds.

I made a time-lapse movie of planting. Let me tell you, it's hard to get a good angle on a window box. I taped my phone to a stick and stuck it in the self-watering hole.

 I'll show you what it looks like in a few weeks and give you a peek at some of the other containers I planted this year.

Gardening tool I'm never without: my phone

I stayed up late last night to work on a blog post. I was quite proud of myself because I even scheduled it to go up automatically. Often I get close to finishing them, but work on them a little bit in the morning before I hit "publish," but it's so much nicer when I finish them and they just magically appear.

But today it did not magically appear. I have no idea why. I only know that it's obviously stuck on my home computer. But I didn't want to leave you without a post.

So I give you these three videos I caught while gardening this weekend. I always have my phone with me when I garden, not because I'm expecting a call (cell phones rarely work at our house in summer, don't ask me why), but because I'm a serial audiobook listener and I love listening to books while I garden. I just started the third book in the Game of Thrones series. I've been watching the television show but I've never read the books so now I'm going back and listening them. This book is 47 hours long! You can do a heck of a lot of weeding in 47 hours of a book.

Anyway, the added benefit of always having my phone with me is that I can catch photos or videos on the fly. There's no way I would have captured this hummingbird moth having a good old time in the zinnias if I had to run into the house to get my phone.

You might have seen a couple of these if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, but I don't think I put all three of them in any one place.

IMG 3151 from The Impatient Gardener on Vimeo.

IMG 3152 from The Impatient Gardener on Vimeo.

IMG 3153 from The Impatient Gardener on Vimeo.

Knots 101: The bowline (AKA the only knot you REALLY need to know)

Welcome to my first ever video post! This has been a long time in coming, mostly because I didn't realize how much time was involved in making and editing a video. I actually kind of gave up on the process, which will be totally obvious when you watch the video which is an exercise in awkward Midwestern accents, squinting, bad camera angles (I just had it sitting on the deck railing), awkward shots of feet and getting WAY too excited about knots. Oh well ... let's call it charming, shall we?

Here's why you need to know how to tie a bowline: Simply put, it is a knot that works when no other knot will, as well as being a knot that will work even if another knot might work better. In other words, if you learn how to tie only one knot, make it a bowline (pronouced bo-lin).

Here are just a few times when a bowline comes in handy:
• Tying something (a Christmas tree, perhaps) to the top of your car, when you need to strap it down tight.  Tie a bowline in one end of a line, and put the other end through the loop to give you more purchase to pull against.
• Strapping down something to a trailer or truck bed.
• Makeshift emergency dog collar.
• Towing something.
• Moving a giant hosta.
• Moving a big rock (tie bowlines around it in each direction).
• Connecting almost anything to a line.
• Hanging a basket with a line so you can easily slip it in and out of the loop.
• Tying your trunk closed when you've got stuff sticking out of it.

People are often taught to tie a bowline using some weird story about a hole, a rabbit and a tree, and I refer to it in the video. It never helped me much, but it does for some people. Basically the initial loop you make is the hole (you'll hold this bit in your left hand). The bitter end (held in your right hand) is the rabbit, and the long end of the line is the tree. The rabbit comes up through the hole, around the tree and back down through the hole. Or just watch the video and hopefully it will make more sense.

After the video, I'll have a photo tutorial as well.

Knots 101: The Bowline from The Impatient Gardener on Vimeo.

OK, now it's your turn. Grab any kind of line you have (although a little bigger and a length of about 3 feet or so is probably easiest to handle when learning) and start practicing. You can adjust the side of the loop you create either while you're tying the knot (by starting the initial loop farther back or closer to the bitter end) or at the end by sort of feeding excess line through the knot.

So that's it! Remember, don't be the person who follows the adage: If you can't tie knots, tie lots. Learn how to tie a bowline and you'll never be left tying 15 overhand knots only to watch them fall apart or having to cut the line in the end because they won't open up.

Hit me up with any questions you have in the comments!