Shadowing Practice: How to Harvest, Condition, and Store Tulips // Dry Storing Tulip Flowers with Visuals // Northlawn - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Hi everyone, I hope you're having a wonderful day.
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Hi everyone, I hope you're having a wonderful day.
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Well, today I wanna share with you some different methods for harvesting tulips based on your particular needs for that tulip.
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So let's go through a couple different methods.
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The first method, let's just talk about you're interested mainly in having the tulip come back again next year.
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So we're not really too concerned about the longest vase life or the longest stem length.
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We just wanna bring some beautiful tulips inside the home to enjoy and say a mason jar or a shorter arrangement.
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So for that what I want to do is leave as many leaves as possible on the plant
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so that the bulb can regenerate itself for next year.
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So on a really tall tulip like this one here called
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Mystic Van Eyck I can actually just cut right above the first leaf here
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and that leaves me with three leaves on the plant.
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My goal is to really always have at least two to three leaves left intact and attached to the tulip bulb.
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And now I'll just let this tulip die back naturally.
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It'll take at least a month,
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a month and a half to do that here in Sixby Southern Pennsylvania.
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And at that point, once it's all brown,
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I can remove the foliage.
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Now certain tulips come back better than others.
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So if you're looking for a tulip that you really want to perennialize,
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think about purchasing a Fosteriana tulip,
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a Triumph or Darwin tulip and also the species tulips come back reliably.
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However, they're generally not great cut flowers.
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Now let's move on to a situation where say you're having some people over for dinner this evening
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and you want to head out into your garden
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and pick some gorgeous double tulips and you want to get a really nice long stem length on them.
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You know that with a double tulip,
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a peony type tulip, that it's not going to return reliably for you next year.
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So it's really best to just treat it as an annual and pull up the entire plant.
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So how I do that is I reach down to the base of the stem,
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my thumb pointing down towards the earth.
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That gives me a nice good grip on the plant.
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I pull directly upward towards the heavens and it comes right out.
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Sometimes the bulb will come out, sometimes it won't.
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For this situation and these purposes,
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I'm not worried about getting the bulb out.
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I just pull as I please in whatever head stage
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that I'm looking for for that night's dinner party and I have a beautiful bouquet ready to go.
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Now let's move on to how to harvest tulips for the purpose of selling them
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and there's two different methods that I'm going to use.
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First let me talk about harvesting tulips for the purpose of selling them quickly.
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So I'm harvesting them, I'm immediately selling them at my farm stand within say one to five days.
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I'm selling them to a grocery store chain very quickly,
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a CSA, something where I'm harvesting the tulips
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and then I'm pretty much processing them right away and getting them in the hands of that end consumer.
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Here's how I want to harvest a single tulip.
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So you see these ones back here,
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these are two colored up and especially
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when the sun comes out today these are just going to blow open
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and it's very very early in the morning right now by the way it's about 6 a.m when I'm harvesting.
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So what I'm looking for on a single tulip
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that I plan to sell at my farm stand is I just want to be able to tell what color it is.
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Some people will call this like cracked bud stage or colored bud stage.
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I say if you can tell what color
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that tulip is going to be when you pull it then it's the right time to pull the tulip.
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If it's fully colored up like this this is better for just use in the home.
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So hopefully you can see this one right here
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and I'll give you a close-up in a second
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but basically I can tell this tulip is going to be orange so I'm ready to go ahead and pull it.
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And I'm not going to dry store these.
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I'm going to pull them and put them into water and put them in my cooler,
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which is just a refrigerator at 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Once again, I'm reaching all the way down to the base of the tulip and pulling straight up.
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Now look at the wonderful and fabulous long stem length on this.
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You see this bottom leaf here,
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it always gets floppy so just go ahead pull
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that off put it in your compost pile
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so i'm hoping you can see here that these are pretty tight but
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if we take a look at them even though they're still
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primarily green we can tell this is an orange tulip this is dordone tulip
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so this is a stage i want to harvest my single tulips at for the purpose of selling
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and for the longest vase life
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that i'm going to store in water in my cooler for really no longer than five days now
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if i'm I'm harvesting a double tulip I want it to be fully colored up like this one here
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and you can see it's just starting to crack open.
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That's how I like to pick a double.
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So let's take a look at some parrots now.
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This parrot although it's absolutely gorgeous this variety is called silver parrot.
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This is fully open so I'm just going to use this for enjoyment in my home.
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I won't sell that.
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What I want to see from a parrot
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that I'm going to sell at the farm stand I want to look like this.
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So I would say it's fully colored,
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but it's not really cracking open yet,
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but I can very, very clearly see what color this tulip is going to be.
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This is what I like my parrot tulips to look like.
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So now let's move on to dry storing tulips.
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I think that this is the most complicated way to harvest tulips,
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and there's a lot of things that maybe we could talk about more than what I see in most articles.
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So let's talk about what not to do first.
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First of all, and I've done this before and learned it the hard way,
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when you do dry storage on a tulip,
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you want to make sure there's absolutely no moisture at all on your tulips.
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And I reinforce that because if you watch my channel,
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you know I live in a wet climate
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and sometimes it can be really tricky to be harvesting the tulips when there's no moisture on them.
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I don't even want the dew of the morning on these tulips
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when they're going into dry storage
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because they'll actually just kind of mold inside the tulip petals themselves
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when you pull them out and that would be so sad right?
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It made a big investment in all of these bulbs.
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So I guess what I'm trying to say here is just to make sure the entire tulip is completely dry.
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So there are two schools of thought on to whether you
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should leave the bulb on the tulip for dry storage or whether you should take it off.
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I've just always left the bulb on.
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That was how I was initially taught to do it.
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And to be honest with you,
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I've never tried it with removing the bulb.
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So that's a method I'm going to show you today because it's the method that I know works for me here.
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So I want to make sure I get the bulb out.
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So I'm going to get my pitchfork and let me move the camera back so you can see.
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So basically for this, the stage of harvest is exactly the same.
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I just want to make sure and get the bulb out.
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A lot of times the bulb will come out since I'm growing in raised beds,
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but just to make sure I take a pitchfork and I don't want to pierce the bulb.
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So I'm kind of about say eight inches away here from the edge.
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I just kind of pull on them just a bit to loosen them up
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and that usually assures that I'm able to get the whole thing out bulb and all.
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So there you can see nice and easy in the same stage I'll just lay these on the ground for now.
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I'll just grab a couple for you.
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For dry storage I bunch in bunches of 10.
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I hear some differing of opinions on that too but like I say I'm just sharing what has worked best for me.
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So let's just go ahead and wrap these five tulips for storage just
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because I can feel that the sun is starting to come up
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and I need to do a real life harvest after this video.
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So let me grab some paper and I'll show you how to wrap these for dry storage.
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All right so I have my paper here.
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You can use anything you want for this really.
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I see some people use newspaper,
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some people use craft paper.
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The other business that I own is a knitwear company
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so I happen to have a lot of tissue paper
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that I use as packing and so I just use this brown tissue paper and it seems to work fine for me.
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So I'll take my tulips once again that are completely dry.
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The head's dry, the foliage is dry, everything is dry.
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I'm gonna put them right here in the tissue paper.
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I kind of have all the heads together there and literally I'm just going to wrap it like a burrito.
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just like that.
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At this point, some people will rubber band.
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Like I say, I'm only just sharing what has always worked for me.
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I just use a little tape right here because I have it on hand.
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So at this point, these are ready to go into my cooler,
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which like I said, it's just a refrigerator.
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It's temperature controlled and it's set at 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Some people like to lay them in bulb crates.
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I like to just make a bunch of these bunches, bunches of 10.
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So I know each bunch has 10 in it.
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And then I put them all in a dry bucket.
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I kind of just lump them all together in one bucket.
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And whenever I want to take them out,
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whether it be two weeks from now or three weeks from now,
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let me show you what I would do.
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So I'm going to sacrifice storing these for you to show you what you would do next.
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So when you take them out of storage,
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you leave the paper on.
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I feel like that is often forgotten in a lot of articles,
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but leave the paper on to help them stay upright during the rehydration process.
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Because once you pull them out of storage,
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they will look really, really frightening.
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They will be flopping all over the place.
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You'll think they're dead, but that's just how they look they'll be fine in just a few hours.
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So let me grab my snips.
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So let's say it's three weeks from now it's Memorial Day
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and I want to sell these at my flower stand or give them away as a gift.
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At that point I'm going to pull them out of storage.
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I'm going to keep them wrapped.
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I have a nice clean bucket of water.
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I'm going to at that point remove the bulbs.
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I'll pull the paper up because I don't want the paper getting all wet in my bucket.
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About three inches of water in my bucket.
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And in about two to three hours,
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these will be rehydrated
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and will turn from the look of limp noodles into nice turgid stems once again
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that are ready to be sold or designed with.
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So that's pretty much all there is to harvesting tulips.
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I hope it was helpful to just talk through a couple different ways that you might choose to harvest them.
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One other thing that's really nice about removing the bulb from the planting area is
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that it really clears the planting area right away.
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You're not left with an area that has bulbs in it.
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And with that being said,
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you may have heard that it's really important to practice good crop rotation when it comes to tulips.
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And I've had quite a few messages from people questioning if that's really necessary.
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And yes, definitely it's necessary to not grow tulips in the same place again for seven years.
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Tulip fire is a devastating disease that will take out your entire crop of tulips.
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It can be a little bit challenging to find new places for cut tulips every year,
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but what would be even worse is to lose your crop due to something like tulip fire.
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Well, I think that brings me to the end of today's video.
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Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
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There's definitely multiple ways to do things,
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and I think it's always just a matter of finding what works best for you and your particular situation.
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I want to wish you a wonderful day out in your gardens,
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and of course, happy gardening.
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Bye!
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This engaging video on harvesting, conditioning, and storing tulips serves as an excellent resource for English learners looking to improve English pronunciation and enhance their speaking skills. By listening to the speaker's clear and descriptive explanations, you can practice your shadow speak technique, where you mimic the speaker's intonation and rhythm, thus reinforcing your own oral communication abilities. Moreover, the practical context of gardening offers a relatable and enriching topic, making the learning process enjoyable and informative.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
While watching the video, pay attention to the following key structures and phrases that can elevate your own speaking skills:
- Using phrases for recommendations: The speaker uses expressions like "if you're looking for..." to guide the audience toward specific tulips. This structure is useful for giving advice in various contexts.
- Imperative verbs: Commands like "pull directly upward" and "cut right above the first leaf" are prevalent. Practicing these can enhance your ability to give clear, concise instructions.
- Conditional sentences: Phrases starting with "if" indicate conditions for outcomes, such as "if you're interested mainly in having the tulip come back..." Practicing this structure can help you express hypothetical situations efficiently.
- Present continuous tense: The speaker often uses this tense to describe ongoing actions, like "I'm harvesting" and "I'm selling." This can be beneficial for learners who wish to discuss current or future activities.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As you watch the video, be aware of certain pronunciation challenges that may arise:
- "Tulip": It’s pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, as in "TU-lip," which can often be mispronounced by non-native speakers who may place emphasis differently.
- "Condition": The middle syllable is pronounced with a softer 'd', leading to common misunderstanding. Aim for the correct pronunciation, like "con-DI-tion."
- "Foliage": This word can be tricky due to its silent 'g' at the end. Ensure to pronounce it as "FOH-lee-uhj."
By focusing on these pronunciation traps while engaging in English speaking practice, you can steadily enhance your clarity and confidence. Utilizing a shadowing site can further assist in refining these aspects as you embed yourself in authentic spoken language.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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