12 easy steps to pack your Dahlia babies away for the winter.

Step 1

Cut the plants about 9″to a foot above the soil about a week before you dig them up. This should be after the first soft frost. This year I did this on November 4th. Remember to mark them in October while they still have flowers so you can tell the colors next year.

Step 2

Dig them up and shake off the dirt and let them dry about a day.

Step 3

Trim off the excess roots and clean them with a soft paintbrush. You want to keep a couple of inches of the original stem and the collar just below it. The original stem is hollow down to a certain point. Cut until it is solid.

You can wash with a hose and plain water if they’re really muddy, but try to keep some of the beneficial microbes on the roots. This year they were so dry that the dirt brushed off easily

Step 4

Let them dry a couple of days. While they’re drying you can mark them with a sharpie if you know what color/type they are.

Step 5

Get some free liquor boxes, newspapers and my special fungus mix and start packing. This year I packed them away on November 13th.

Step 6

Pick a clump and make sure it’s all clean and healthy. It should be a little dry but not wrinkled. If it gets too dried out put in a bucket of water, see if it perks up and repeat from step 4.

Step 7

Using a big plastic bag, mix together some (about a quart )of fine vermiculite and about a half cup of sulfur (a handful). Mix it up good and put the clump in and give it a good shake. This will prevent mold – the enemy.

Step 8

Shake off all the mixture and place the clump on newspaper.

Step 9

Wrap the clump lightly in the newspaper, don’t smash it in. If you need more layers add more paper until you are sure that nothing is poking out. You do not want 2 clumps to touch each other without paper in between.

Step 10

Put some shredded paper or vermiculite in the bottom of a cardboard box. You don’t want to use sawdust of shavings, they are too dry. Probably 4″ deep is about what I do.

Step 11

Pack the wrapped clumps into the cardboard boxes. They are fine sitting on top of each other, just don’t let any of the clumps touch each other without newspaper between them.

Step 12

Boxes go into the basement or a cool, dry place for the winter. I have stored in the garage and they have survived but some varmints got in there so the clumps go in the basement now.

I’ll show you in the spring how to cut the clumps up into tubers ready to plant.