Dahlia Storage

Back in October I mentioned briefly that I was planning on digging up my Dahlia tubers for the first time and researching on how to do it. It’s amazing at how much information I found online about storage of Dahlias and it’s been so helpful to find those resources. I did not realize how many Dahlia farmers there are out there who are passionate about gardening and willing to share their knowledge. 

I have learned a ton of gardening tips from others over the years. One thing that has changed how I garden is making more use of the space that I do have to work with. Ive learned that it doesn’t take a ton of space to grow a cutting garden and there are a lot of ways to make better use of space that you may have. For instance I have found that if you are planning on growing a cutting garden that is full of annuals, chances are, that you will be replanting them new each year so you would not need to really worry about overcrowding since it’s for the short term of the current season and typically won’t do much harm. If it were perennials, or even biennials that is an another story and you would want to plant them in a spot with room to spread. Since you will be cutting the annuals a lot you could try and grow them closer than what is recommended providing that you are still allowing for good air circulation. Once I changed this way of looking at things I feel I became better at growing things. I’m still learning all the time and I think that is something that being a gardener is all about. It’s constantly a learning process. 

In this post I will share briefly what I learned about the dividing process of my first Dahlias and what type of storage method I chose. It’s all trial and error as I don’t know how my climate will effect the storage. To make things more complicated, I live in a small 450sq ft apartment and do all of my gardening in a space separate from here. I don’t have a shed or cellar or any type of climate controlled space so my situation is very different than anyone else that I read about. I did search for dahlia farmers in my local area and read their recommendations for storage and since we live in a very dry climate, the storage method they use is using the Saran Wrap method. I read others that used vermiculite and so Im trying a little bit of both. Mine are being stored in a wooden crate under my bed and it stays about 55 degrees in this spot. So far so good. Ive been checking them every couple weeks and they still are nice and chilled and firm and no signs of any rotting. I have a lot of hope for them to survive the winter. It’s currently 41 degrees outside and we are expecting snow very soon. The temps have been in the low 30’s with some mornings down to 18. It took me a week to dig them all up. I worked on half a garden box at a time and only divided what I could handle each evening after work. I brought it all inside on a table at the garden location and washed and sanitized and allowed them to dry for 24 hrs before storing. I labeled them the best that I could. Some are in ziplocs with vermiculite and some are wrapped in plastic. It’s amazing at how much I began with and how small they ended up being after dividing them for storage. What started as a big tangled mess of roots and tubers are now condensed into tiny little packages. I am sharing a few pictures below.