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t’s been a frantic-ish week digging and storing. We’re pretty confident in our ability to store seeds and preserve veggies and fruit (did I mention that pear tree #2 is LOADED?), but my knowledge of tubers is very limited.
So from 65 degree sunny fall days to hard freezing at night has rendered the dahlia and canna lilies ready to pull and store. Now I’ve never done this before. I am happy to yank the gladiolas and store them – they’ve always done well for me, but I’ve never over-wintered dahlia or cannas so I’m sort of bewildered and just a tad anxious about doing it correctly.
First of all, I received a banana box and a farm basket full of tubers last spring from a local gardener who was selling his extras. And I planted them. I’ve never grown either before so I had to look up how deep to plant them, where to plant them, etc……But plant them I did and they all did beautifully. Huge red flowers on both – a pleasure to look at and big sellers as cut flowers at the farmer’s market. Great plants and I am really interested in saving them for next year.
So, novice that I am, I read up on how to pull and store them. Then I actually had to do it. I thought they would come out with one or two small tubers that had grown over the summer. Wrong. The Dahlias came up with HUGE bunches of potato= looking tubers – 15-20 per plant and the cannas….well let’s just say I am shocked. I planted little tubers 
this spring – maybe four inches long. What I got out of the ground this winter was a bunch of small footballs! Hefty, heavy, thick root systems. So I pulled them and hung them in 40# bunches to dry in the shed. I still need to brush the loose dirt off and get them in some peat moss for storage in the basement. Now Gladiolas are pretty indestructible, I’ve never had any go bad or refuse to come back after storage but they are a bulb – not a tuber. Tubers needs to stay cold and damp to stay dormant – bulbs just need to stay dry.
I’ve been reading about treating them with fungicides but I’m not sure if I have to. I honestly don’t want to – the organic brands are very expensive and most contain sulfur which I would prefer not to add into our flower beds. I think I’m going to try saving them without the chemicals and see how they do. If anyone has done this before and has any advice – let us know! 
Now it’s off to brush loose dirt off and hoist those mammoth bundles down for storage. I sure hope they over- winter because we have a LOT and it would be amazing to have so many blooming around the farm next year.
