Getting A Jump Start

We dug, divided, and stored more Dahlia tubers than ever last fall, remember?  It is a task for the determined and partially insane depending on how many plants you grew and intend to grow each year. In Maine our growing season is certainly not in our favor,  so in order for us to enjoy the amazing blooms of the Dahlias sooner, we will pot up individual tubers indoors and place them in a sunny spot.

We start by bringing all of our stored tubers up from the chilly temps of our cellar on the 1st of March. Each tuber will be checked thoroughly for signs of rot,  and if so we will discard them. This year has proven to be nearly 100% successful. The tubers are in the same form as when we stored them. No rot or shriveling.

Plastic Wrapped Dahlia Tubers

Inspecting For Rot

We will come back to inspect them within 2 weeks to see if any have “eyed up” (signs of life). This example of Dahlia tuber Ken’s Rarity (below), the tuber has advanced beyond the “eye” stage and a shute is ready to burst out of  its wrapping (3 weeks later). Some cultivars eye up quicker than others therefore we will inspect them more regularly.

A Tuber Ready To Pot

Sunny window space is limited so we pot up our tubers in small containers to get as many cultivars started as possible.  After each pot is filled half way with potting soil the tubers are placed with the “eyes” facing up and topped off with additional soil.

Preparing The Potting Medium

Plant Tuber With Eyes Facing Up

Large tubers are cut prior to potting so they will fit in the containers.

Covering The Tuber

All plants are labeled identifying the variety.

Identifying Each Variety

Potted plants are placed wherever there is sun and left untouched,  meaning no water,  until we see growth popping up from the soil.  Premature watering can promote tuber rot. Not good!

A Matter Of Time And Patience

We have potted 260 dahlias to date and will keep a close eye on their progress, stayed tuned.

Harvesting flowers throughout the growing season is twofold. You prevent unwanted self seeds from taking over precious garden space plus you get to preserve the beauty of the flowers all year long by drying them. Now that winter has settled in here in Maine this is a good time to replace tired floral arrangements.

A Sampling Of Our Harvests

We’ve collected over 20 varieties of flowers throughout the growing season and hang them in a cool and dry place.

Chinese Lanterns In The Garden

Chinese Lanterns are traditionally harvested when they are orange but we pick them from when they are green, then gold, straight through until they nearly turn burnt orange.

Ready To Harvest Straw Flowers

[View with PicLens]

Nigella

Nigella’s “love-in-a-mist” ballon-shaped seed pods with its delicate and lacy greenery is an all time favorite.

Lanterns With Artemisia

Silvery Artemisia harvested before it goes to seed offers flowing textures that brighten the color and enhance the shape of these delicate yet structured papery orange chinese lanterns.

These tired arrangements are in need of refreshing.

Cornucopia Of Flowers

The soft lime green color of the Annabelle Hydrangeas have faded along with the beautiful dark cherry and lime tones of the PeeGees. Hydrangeas are  also harvested in stages to capitalize on all of their varying shades of color.

Spray With some Fading Echinops

Dried flowers add beauty, texture, and color anywhere.  In this example,  a low ceiling did not provide enough room atop kitchen cabinets for baskets or other large decorative items, so a collection of dried flowers from our gardens filled the space nicely.

Dressing Up Cabinets

Even during the coldest and grayest days of our long Maine winters, these dried flowers bring warmth and cheer. They are also a daily reminder of brighter, warmer and longer days.

End Cabinet

Here Lamb’s Ears, Blue Hydrangea, Poppy seed pods, and PeeGees finish off the space above an end cabinet.

Artemisia, Lanterns, and Eucalyptus

It is said that Chinese Lanterns brings good fortune to a home.

Basket Of Flowers

Here a basket of colorful flowers adds life to a bathroom tub surround.

Top Of An Armoire

Bouquets of dried flowers and a basket filled with lanterns take up empty space atop an armoire.

Annabelle, Astilbe, Poppies, Nigella, Strawflowers, And Statice

It is November and time to plant our garlic patch and as mentioned in our harvesting garlic  post this past August we are sharing our planting techniques. Growing and planting garlic is simple. We look forward to this event each year because there is nothing like the enjoyment of the flavor and freshness of your own grown garlic.

We start with broadcasting aged manure and organic fertilizer to the area and then till it into the soil.

Tilling The Area

When the soil has been thoroughly tilled the area is graded.

Grading The Soil

Now we are ready to separate the bulbs into individual cloves. We start with our favorite variety Russian Red, this garlic is favored for its ease of peeling and wonderful garlic flavor. We retrieve the box of garlic bulbs from the cellar that we set aside from our summer harvest. The largest cloves are then culled for planting with the smaller ones set aside for cooking. Always remember the largest cloves yield the largest bulbs.

Beautiful Large Bulb Saved For Planting

Separating The Cloves

We place sticks at the end of each planting row and then tie a string between the sticks to keep our planting rows straight. 

Planting

We use a round stick to make holes 1-2 inches deep 4-6 inches apart and then followed up with placing the garlic cloves in each hole.When we finish planting the first row of garlic we remove the string to the next row and identify the row’s variety we just planted, in this case Russian Red. The cloves are planted just barely under the surface.

Elephant garlic is another variety we plant.  It is not as easy to peel as Russian Red but has a milder flavor that is enjoyed in salad dressings and other dishes. This clove weighs well over an ounce.

Elephant Garlic

Planting The Cloves

Rows Of Garlic

When all the cloves have been planted we rake soil over each row carefully so as not to pull out the cloves due to there proximity to the surface.

Covering The Rows

When all the rows have been covered we apply a heavy covering of straw to prevent the cloves from heaving during the winter months. We have just over a foot of straw for frost protection.

Applying The Straw

Lastly we place several large pine boughs to keep the straw from blowing away in our strong coastal winds.

Pine Boughs

Here the garlic will stay covered until spring, we will post on our garlic unveiling then.

It’s that time of year when we are digging up, dividing and preparing our dahlia tubers for winter storage. With over 100 dahlia plants we have our work cut out for us, but we manage to work at it bit by bit. First we trim up a few outer branches on each dahlia so we may easily access and cut the main stem.

Trimming Up Dahlia Branches

We leave a 6-8 inch handle which will come in handy for transporting to the rinsing and cutting station.

Leaving A Handle

Completing The Cut Down Process

After all the dahlias have been cut down, each stem is then properly tagged with the dahlia name. We dig up to 12 inches away around the perimeter of the stem so as not to damage the tubers underground and then they are carted to our rinsing station to rid all excess soil and set aside to dry. Every step is done with care to avoid damaging the tubers.

Rinsed Tubers

After all the tubers are rinsed we are ready to divide each clump into individual tubers. Some dahlias can be challenging as in this example of Lupin Ben so having patience is a plus.

Lupin Ben

We start by looking for “eyes” on individual tubers and in this case the red arrow indicates one of many.

Tuber "eyes"

In this example A indicates where a tuber has been cut and B is next in line.

Dividing

The tuber is then cut, labeled, and treated with a fungicide before storing. We have two methods of storing our tubers. The larger ones are layered in pine shavings in a cardboard box and smaller tubers are wrapped in plastic wrap 5 to a pack without a single tuber touching one another and then stored in a plastic container.

Storing Dahlias

We grow over 100 dahlia’s and we cherish every one of them, however there are some that perform like work horses and we consider them must haves for our gardens and in floral arrangements. Each of these varieties are prolific with strong and long stems and ideal for cutting. Here are a few of our picks.

Ferncliff Copper

Ferncliff Copper has 5″ blooms and is especially gorgeous arranged in harvest bouquets.

Snoho Betty

Perfect purple Snoho Betty is continually remarked on by our guests.

Kenora Wildfire

This low bush beauty Kenora Wildfire pumps out volumes of huge bright red blooms and requires minimal support.

Scarborough Brilliant

And of course the intense colors of Scarborough Brilliant are stunning.

If you love beautiful flowers as we do and are interested in creating fresh dahlia floral arrangements also look into Bliss and Rosella, they are fantastic as fillers. All of our healthy dahlia tubers were purchased locally from endlesssummerflowerfarm in Camden, Maine.

We grow a lot of herbs and I will harvest and dry them throughout the season, but one of the ways I preserve the “fresh” taste of herbs is by preparing a number of pesto’s to freeze for later use. Cilantro, Mint, Basil and Parsley are the 4 that I always have on hand. They take only a few minutes to prepare and come in handy for swirling into soups soups,  adding to salad dressings, tossing into pasta’s, accompanying seafood or meat dishes and the list goes on.  One of my favorites is combining parsley with pistachios. 

Shelling Pistachio Nuts

In this recipe I used dry-roasted and salted pistachios but obviously you can use unsalted and adjust the salt addition to taste. 

Parsley and Pistachio Nut Pesto:

• 1 large bunch parsley leaves or 3 Cups packed
• 3/4 C good olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/4 tsp salt-or to taste
• generous 1/2 C shelled dry-roasted and salted pistachios

Place all ingredients in a food processor and process until evenly blended but still able to see tiny bits of nuts.

Parsley and Pistachio Pesto

If I was to serve this as a pasta pesto dish I incorporate fresh grated cheese and 1-2 Tbls softened butter to it just before serving.  All the nuts and dried fruits I use for cooking, baking or just plain eating are from Sunnyland Farms in Georgia, they are one of my favorite sources for high quality products.