bulbs

Yesterday, we planted bulbs ... lots and lots of bulbs.

We have an area of the yard at the farmhouse that doesn't grow much grass, so we decided to try naturalizing daffodils there. We found a nice assortment of daffodil bulbs for naturalizing from White Flower Farm in Connecticut and bought 200 bulbs. While we were at it, we bought 200 of another assortment of small, shade-loving bulbs for our shady garden (which has grown pretty much nothing but weeds since 2005). And we threw in some popeye daffodils and red and yellow tulips to plant by the front stairs -- 448 bulbs altogether! Got all but 100 of the small bulbs planted...hope to get to them next weekend.

Using the new bulb planters Dana picked out ... very expensive, but worth it if you're planting hundreds of large bulbs. (I used a trowel to plant the small bulbs.) Petra kept picking up the bulbs and running away with them. I think she thought they were tennis balls.

We also discovered that frost comes a lot earlier to Berks County than it does to Delaware County. In Broomall, I still have beans and peppers and herbs coming in, and we don't really expect frost until November. But at the farmhouse, it got cold enough to kill the basil and bush beans. So we picked all the rest of the mature peppers, pole beans, and squash, just in case it freezes harder before we get back. We also found a watermelon in the long grass.

Another fun thing I found was a salamander by the front of the house (where I was planting the tulips). I think it's a red-backed salamander. Very cute.