@blossomandbranchfarm: Like every other gardener and flower farmer in colder growing zones, I used to dig up and store my dahlias over winter. It was such a headache—burned out and exhausted at the end of the season, trucking out and digging heavy dahlias from the clay soil in the cold, washing them off till my fingers were numb, packing them into heavy crates… then checking on them all winter to watch for signs of rot, or dry out, or freeze… the space required to store them all…in short it was enough to drive me away from dahlias! so three years ago, I decided to do an experiment and leave them in the ground over the winter. I figured, I was done growing them if they were going to be such a pain and so high maintenance, so if they didn’t come back, they didn’t come back and it was no big loss. I covered them with giant piles of leaves and then tarped them down, extending the mulch and the tarps about 2 feet on either side of the dahlias to ensure water wouldn’t get down and rot them over winter and the ground wouldn’t freeze. That winter was the coldest we had in three decades, with a week where our temperatures didn’t get above single digits and nights were in the negative double digits! I thought for sure they were toast. Imagine my surprise when, in the spring, I lifted the tarp and the mulch, and there were tiny dahlia sprouts! This will now be my third year following this process. Now if I want to divide my dahlias, I dig them up in spring to divide and I don’t have to worry anymore about the fall nightmare of digging, and storing them all winter. If you want to learn more, we have a whole YouTube video showing how to do it in my bio! Are you going to try it this year or is this too scary?😱 #garden #explore #dahlias #fall #homestead

Blossom and Branch Farm

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Wednesday 23 October 2024 04:49:03 GMT