#87 Storing My Dahlia Tubers Before Winter Really Arrives

What is happening out here? We went from somewhat a few nice days last week to snow on the weekend. And yeah, I'm not here for this yet. I am not ready for snow. It was actually pretty fun to see it come down on Sunday. And I said to Bob, the only good thing about this is that I had a lot of leaves on the ground Sunday morning. So I felt like the snow will keep the leaves in place until I can get them scooped up and onto my dahlia beds, hopefully in the next week or two. It's only a little blip in my week. I think it will disappear by tomorrow. So thankfully, I had enough work to do in the house on Monday. And today, I actually need to get going because I have a meeting to head to about the collective. But yeah, my list of outdoor things is not complete. So I really need to hit the rest of the week hard. But first up on the docket is storing my dahlias. And I've seen the forecast. I knew it was getting really cold, which is why I made sure I got the pumps in and my tanks empty and everything. And I just whipped all my dahlias and I had some ranunculus anemone not cleaned up yet. I just put that all in the cooler in case the barn decided it wanted to freeze in there. But I didn't properly put them away because I didn't have these wood shavings. So I did run and get some on Saturday as well. And so now, first up this week is to clean up my mess and get my cooler organized. Okay, step one is just cleaning up all my flowers. So what I did was I threw everything in the cooler really quickly. But the problem was this was all still in the cooler because I kind of ignored it at the end of the flower season. So this needs to get in the compost. Then I have room to bring out the dahlia tubers and start packing them away properly. There is so many different ways to store and keep your dahlias through the off season. So what I'm doing might not be the best option for you. But it works for me. And I kind of always have the philosophy of using what you have. I don't like to spend a ton of money. So I have, where are they? These are the feed bags that my corn for the goats comes in. And my chicken feed from the local feed store here. And they're, they're kind of like this woven plastic material. I used to like I have tried a variety of ways of storing dahlias. And I used to just keep them in these crates. I originally I brought them into the basement. I've kept them in my garage. And now I keep them in my cooler because yeah, there's not enough room in my garage for all of it. Plus, I feel like I can keep the temperature and the humidity a little bit more steady in my cooler. So I just put all my dahlia tubers in these feed bags. And then I top it with not much. I just and sometimes I don't even do this. But I just put in this like very fine wood shavings. And it's usually because I don't want to spend a ton of money. I usually only buy a couple bags of them and I just spread it around which works out to be three or four scoops per bag. I I bang it in. It kind of goes down but not even perfectly. But I just I feel like it does keep if something is going to rot in my bag, it does kind of get soaked up by the wood shavings. And then yeah, most importantly, is you make sure the bag is labeled. So the most important thing with the tubers is you don't want them too wet and you don't want them too dry. These are actually these are looking perfect. They they've been out of the ground now for a few days and it's like they've they're kind of they feel like they've cured a bit. They don't feel damp. The outer skin feels nice and dry. But they're not shriveled yet. It's not like I left them out too long in the sun or anything. And then I Yeah, I have to keep them like this for the whole winter. So you really have to watch a the temperature. If it's too warm and dry air, they will shrivel and dry up. And if it's too moist, I've had them rot. More importantly, too, is you don't want them to freeze if you're in a climate like where I am where the temperatures can get pretty cold over the winter. So I find my cooler works pretty good. It's a pretty small space. I just put a small heater in there, which actually rarely needs to run on a normal winter. And I keep it I try to keep it between like two and four degrees so so quite cold, but not freezing if they freeze. Yeah, they're done. I thought that I could scratch something off my to do list. But putting the dahlias away and finishing cleaning up the field where the dahlias were are not on my list. But I did the dahlia field. So all the dahlias are out. And I had cover crop on the rows, but I didn't have them all topped with compost. So I finished that this week and cleaned up the past the mess that the chickens had made. So that field is just good to go for the winter. I'm hoping that the last seed I put on was rye. So I'm hoping that we have enough temperatures that hopefully that can still germinate and grow. And then yeah, all the dahlia tubers are again, they're in my cooler. Now I noticed some of the early ones I put in might have been a bit wet. There's a bit of mold starting on them already. But I just need to pay attention to make sure that there's good airflow in there right now I could always put a dehumidifier I know a lot of people have a dehumidifier in their coolers, or in their wherever they're storing their dahlias. But usually I don't have a problem. So either I'll add more wood shavings or yeah, I'll keep an eye on that. It's never really you put them away, but it's a job that's never really finished. You kind of have to pay attention to them all winter to make sure yeah that they're not rotting or drying out or freezing. So I usually check them every day when I go to the barn and do chores. But yeah, so I don't I don't wash my tubers. A lot of people wash their tubers. I don't split my tubers in the fall. I usually just rip them apart in the spring right before I'm planting. A lot of that is due to I'm not selling tubers. I haven't got into that part of the dahlia craziness. I really just store them for myself. If I have extras, sometimes I'll bring them to market and sell some tubers there. But I don't do a lot of things that other people do with their dahlia tubers in the fall. I actually love keeping dirt on the tubers. I kind of feel like they store better that way. When they had the clumps of clay on it, they stored really well in the clay. But that was a heavy, annoying job when the clay was on there. So I like it that there's no clay, but I still don't mind having dirt on the clumps when they go into storage. So dahlia tubers are done. I'm pretty excited about that. And have you noticed that the snow is gone? It only lasted about three days. So thank goodness for that. And all the leaves have pretty much come down very quickly. I'm trying to I didn't want them all to blow away and I don't have time to move them into the field yet. So I just packed some away under this tarp to keep them until I have time. But I am just so thankful that the snow didn't last. I knew it wasn't going to last but I was I'm not ready for winter yet. I know it's fall is kind of drabby out here now and it's not as pretty as it is in the spring and summer. But yeah, it's still nice to be outside and nice when I could just wear my gardening gloves and not freeze my hands off. So it's making me appreciate the fall weather a bit more knowing that yeah, winter is coming and having that little small taste of it. Yeah, anyways, that's it for me this week. Dahlias are done. So we are excited about that. And we'll see what we'll get into next week. Thanks again for joining me and hitting the like button and subscribing and commenting. I really appreciate that and I'll see you again next time.