May is the perfect time to plant bulbs and Daves Garden Products has the ideal product to maximise the quality, colour and size of bulbs. Our BioGro certified Liquid organic humate is an outstanding product to use when planting any types of tubers such as seed potatoes and bulbs. The best way to optimise the initial kickstart is to soak them over night in a solution of Daves organic liquid humate. Make up a solution in a container with a dilution rate of 100mls to 10 litres water. This will help speed up growth by a week or so as the corms will already be turgid ready to shoot, and not need to soak up water from the soil before sprouting.
Prepare your soil with an organic compost that also includes humate and sheep pellets. Add a layer of bulb mix and plant your bulbs with the head pointing up at a depth twice their diameter.
There are four stages of feeding bulbs to optimise growth which are important: Feed bulbs with Daves organic liquid humate when: 1. planting / 2. when stems begin to appear / 3. when starting to flower and / 4. when dying down. Easiest way of applying our liquid humate is to make up a mix in a watering can of 100mls per 10 litre and liberally pour over the foliage so as you get a soil drench as well as foliar feed. It’s important to keep the soil moist while bulbs are growing.
For the best results, plant your bulbs according to the package’s planting times. In general, early-spring bulbs — daffodils and snowdrops, for instance — should be in by late summer or early to mid-autumn. Late-blooming tulips can be planted through to May.
If you can’t get to your gardening immediately, a good idea is removing new bulbs from the bag and storing them in a dry place to prevent mould or mildew (a tray filled with peat moss is a good temporary haven). Also, keep unplanted bulbs in temperatures above 4 degrees C.
Note: Even healthy bulbs will fail if they’re planted in the wrong spot. Most bulbs do best in full sun (at least 6 hours of direct sun a day) and well-drained soil.
You will find our Liquid Humate in most garden centres throughout New Zealand including:
Palmers, Mitre 10, Orderings, Nicols, or your Local Garden Centre. If you can’t find it please drop us a line and we will follow up on your behalf.
Happy Gardening from Dave