The Planting of the Dahlias

There are a zillion ways to do this, this is just what works for us.

Starting in March, as I sort through the tubs, I run across especially ugly tubers with nice eyes and I plant them up in shallow little trays, cover them with moist dirt, and put them in a warm room — my hatching room to be specific. High humidity and high temperatures suits the need quite nicely.

As soon as I see foliage above the ground I move the tuber to a more vertical container, planting the tuber as low as possible and covering up the foliage if I can. I want lots of the plant underground as this is where the new tubers will grow, and I want them to have lots of room. This year, we ended up using loads of clear plastic ToGo drink cups as we have a housemate that can keep us well supplied.

When I can see lots of roots, we once again up-pot them, and again we plant the tuber as low in the pot as possible, burying as much of the plant as I can — removing leaves as needed.

The next move is the one we are working on this weekend, transplanting the plants from the pots to the raised beds. Now there are many tubers that I didn’t get launched in time, and some none at all. No matter, they will all get planted this weekend. I just make sure to put the established plant north of the plain tubers, so as not to shade the newbies out.

As you have probably figured out, the established plant will arrive in the raised bed at a much deeper level than the newbie tuber will, which will give it far more growing room for new tubers as well as make for a more well-rooted and stable plant. The newbie tubers will go in vertically 6 inches deep, which leaves them only 6 inches to work with for new tubers.

I’ll add pics to this as soon as I can.