Prep for Bulb Planting
Waiting eagerly for tulip (or other fall bulbs) to arrive? This year’s east coast port strike created delays for the bulb trade. As your suppliers work hard to manage delayed bulbs arriving in quick succession, here are a few things to do to ensure things run smoothly on your farm.
For field and tunnel plantings:
Prep all tulip trenches, raised beds or rows. The most cumbersome part of planting at our farm is bed prep. We plant untreated tulips in 3-4ft wide trenches and those spaces take some time and muscle to prepare! If they’re ready ahead of time, planting is fast when the bulbs arrive.
For soil-planted bulb forcing:
Make sure that you have enough containers or crates for all your bulbs.
Wash/clean your containers.
Prefill all containers with your growing medium. When we crate plant bulbs, I like to batch fill a couple pallets of crates with soil medium. Water the medium, because the soilless mix can get hydrophobic.
Make sure that your rooting room is prepared and temperature controls are set.
Do you have enough room to cold store everything you’d like to plant?
For hydro bulb forcing:
If you are new to hydroponic growing, be sure your water supply is safe for it. This is especially important if you are planning to grow hydroponically with city/town treated water supply. Bulbs do not tolerate flouride and prefer a neutral pH. City water can often be to alkaline.
Wash and sanitize your trays.
Make sure that your dry storage area controls for temperature and humidity are working.
Make sure that your rooting area temperature and humidity controls are working.
Stock any supplemental fertilizers that you use for the season.
For bulb sales:
Market, market, market. Most buyers needs to hear about your product 7 times before they make a purchase. Start prepping them for your sales ahead of time, so that when your bulbs arrive and you launch a sale, customers are in the know and eager.
Prep all retail bulb packaging. Offering a retail bulb sale? Make sure your packaging has been ordered and is arriving ahead of time. Prepare all labels, tags, stickers in advance.