Bulb Planting Hack

Since most of my favorite bulbs are too tender for my garden and would probably die over the winter here in Chicago I need to be able to plant them and later find them. The problem is that once fall comes around I sometimes forget about where I placed them. This year I have been using things like this strawberry basket from the grocery store.

By placing them inside of something like this basket I can plant them and in the fall when they are ready to be lifted I can find them easily simply by locating the basket. You can also create something similar out of chicken wire to use for your summer bulbs in the garden or place the bulbs you have to lift in large enough pots.

Direct Sowing-Gardening Terms Hacked

Direct sowing has to be the easiest and least expensive method of seed starting for any garden. When you don't have time to make soda bottle greenhouses or use the sandwich bag method or don't want to spend money on buying soil or peat pellets direct sowing your seeds is the way to go. Simply sow your seeds according to the recommendations for planting depth and spacing in your garden or container garden where you would like for your plants to grow. Many of my seeds that require stratification I will just place in the ground where I want them to grow and will let the natural freeze-thaw-cycle do the work for me. There really isn't a more fool proof method of seed starting than direct sowing.

Amaryllis Seeds-Update

This weekend my seed pod on my Amaryllis split open and I was able to collect the seeds. As you can see from the photos the seeds are very thin almost paper like and dark. Amaryllis seeds always remind me of Hosta seeds and from my experience they're very easy to germinate.

If you're interested in propagating your Amaryllis or pollinating your Amaryllis you can see this entry on Amaryllis pollination here in the Garden Hacker blog. I don't know what I'm going to do with so many Amaryllis seedlings but I'm sure I'll find room for them somewhere.

Here's a video I made showing you how to pot an Amaryllis Bulb.



and one showing you how to pollinate an Amaryllis flower.

You can also visit my Amaryllis Bulbs blog where the content is exclusively about growing Amaryllis bulbs.