Weather conditions
It has been an extremely cold and late Spring this year, which has caused our tulips to be in bloom about two weeks later than normal. Also, due to the cold, our flowers have been blooming for an extra-long period, making the bulb district more beautiful than ever.
Following the cold Spring, we have had a couple of warm weeks, which helped our bulbs to grow. We started harvesting our tulips on June 14, about a week later than we normally would.
As the weather continued to be typically Dutch, we have had an extrem period of rainfall in both the Southern and Northern bulb district in the weekend of June 19. Several bulb fields were completely flooded. Although harvest results are hard to predict at this time, we do expect there will be overall bulb shortages due to the current high demand.
Depending on the weather, we are working with 1 to 3 digging machines at the same time, in both the northern and southern bulb district in the Netherlands. Each machine can harvest 6 acres of flower bulbs per day, which is quite a logistic challenge! You can view a video of it on YouTube!
We will need another 4 weeks for harvesting our tulip bulbs, after that we will continue with hyacinths and daffodils in early August.
Warehouse work
While one team is busy harvesting our crop outside, our warehouse team is busy processing the millions of tulip bulbs they dig up. The bulbs are being dried, graded, cleaned and inspected to make sure only the best bulbs will reach our customers.
In the meantime, our office is busy buying additional bulbs at our fellow growers, booking orders and making sure all logistics processes run smoothly.
If you haven’t placed your order yet, make sure to contact our sales experts. They are happy to advise you on making the best choices for your Fall delivery bulbs.
Best wishes,
The Ruigrok Team
