I had a lot of hope for this year's dahlia garden: my own piece of earth, sunny location, and lots of room to plant. I was hoping that with all the hundreds of tubers I'd plant that I would be able to harvest cut flowers and sell them at a local farmer's market.He told me that the soil was good--no clay, and almost no rocks.
Well, reality sometimes does away with fantasy. The year started out well. In March I had a local farmer plow and disc the ground. Since it had lain fallow for over fifty years, it was a bit of a chore. Then the snow and rain came, and the warm March turned into a cold and wet April. so I thought that when May hit, that I'd rotill it, and start planting. Well, in the mean time, the soil had gotten packed down to the point where my 8 horsepower Husqvarna rotiller just bounced off the surface. So I decided that maybe I needed to hire a professional to come and do the rototilling. That turned out to be a disaster. The job was too small for some, or too far away to come (I get that), or the prices quoted for the job were ridiculous ($750 for a 50x100 plot?? I have half an acre!) Then I got the idea of renting the equipment and doing it myself (Surely it had to be cheaper than $750!). I called Bobcat of South Buffalo. They came out the next morning, and dropped off a practically new tractor (only used 3 hours) with a comfy padded seat and a CUP HOLDER, and a new tow behind Rototiller. I originally had asked for a full day's rental, but turned out to only need this wonderful machine for half a day. So I spent my four hours sipping my large diet Coke (carefully ensconced in its cup colder), wearing my large floppy hat and sunglasses, tooling around and around the garden. Every time I made a pass through, I could feel the rototiller digging down deeper and deeper, I made four trips around the garden. The earth was light and easy to work with, and my prep work was done. Now for the planting...
I started staking out the different beds, but there had been no rain recently. The ground had the consistency of talcum powder. I thought to put off planting until it rained. I knew the tubers would never survive in that dry soil, and neither would the sprouted tubers. And I waited for the rain..... We finally had one rainy day, and I rushed out and started planting like a mad woman. For three days, I planted, and then I noticed that the soil was drying up again, so I held off on plaitng any more. For two weeks it didn't rain.
So you get the picture. Between the lack of rain and the high temperatures, the dahlias didn't thrive. There werer a lot of losses... I planted 25 Canby centennial, and only three came up, and so on.
Recently (in August) the weather has started to change for the better. We've had more rain. Some of the Dahlias (the ones planted in May) are finally starting to bloom, althought the blossoms on a lot of them are stunted and don't fully open up, but at least it's a start. I'm even starting to see tubers sprouting that have been lying in the ground for two months. Well, at least they'll make tubers for next year.
The early cool nights we've had recently have alarmed me a little. I'm hoping the weather stays good until the end of October, to give some of the late starters time to make up for the dismal summer.
