This blog post is dedicated to the seasons we experience here at The Dahlia Barn.
Winter 2013
Our booth at the NW Flower & Garden Show
The harvest is complete and all dahlia tubers are in the barn ready to be divided. Winter is when we work relentlessly to prepare for the NW Flower & Garden Show in Seattle that happens every February. This year it’s Feb. 5-9, 2014. This Garden Show is one of the highlights of our year and allows us to connect with other
Farm direct dahlias and perennials shipped right to your door
horticulture businesses, dahlia growers and the public. It’s amazing to have 80,000 people coming at you in a matter of 5 days. We’re in our booth for 11 hours a day for 5 days, those days fly by fast. Feels like 11 minutes.
After the Garden Show is over, we head right into spring shipping of our dahlia tubers and perennials. We start in March, shipping to the warmer climates like Southern California, Florida, etc. Then we slowly go up the United States through April and ship the Northern US in late April/early May.
Tuber sales in the barn
Spring 2013
Tuber Sales are wrapping up and it’s time to get the tubers planted. Planting, for us can be one of the easier parts of spring for us. It’s important to wait until the soil is at 60 degrees before planting. Once that soil temperature is reached, your dahlias start growing. Be patient, all early planting does is cause your dahlias to get off to a bad start, begin to rot if the soil is too wet. Plus you’ve got to fight the weeds for extra weeks at a time. We always plant the last 2 weeks in May. Check out our ‘Dahlia Care’ page for detailed information on how to grow dahlias.
Our Thorp Wa. production garden freshly planted May 2013
Preparing rows in Thorp for spring planting
Summer 2013
June-July-August is constant weed control and maintenance in the gardens. Especially in Eastern Washington where the weeds are quite vigorous and nasty. If we don’t cultivate every week, we pay dearly for it and have learned our lesson over the years. Our Thorp, WA. Dahlia Barn is a beast that must be kept at bay. If not, it will bite hard !!
Mt. Si Fire – July 2013
One unfortunate event that happened in July of 2013, was a fire on Mt Si, the mountain we live next too. It was named the 444th fire and was caused by a combination of a dry summer and fireworks. The only way to reach the fire was by helicopter. It
Mt Si fire 2013
was impressive to watch the helicopter dip the fire bag into the river, then circle around, dump it on the fire, and back over again. This went on for about 3 days and caused the whole neighborhood to sit at The Dahlia Barn, to watch the fire. People really band together when there is a sense of danger. Luckily, the only casualty was 18 acres of burned trees. Check out our YouTube video of the helicopter
Helicopter 2013
Fall 2013
Late August through the middle October is nothing but flowers, and we sell every flower we grow. First we fill bulk cut flower orders for brides, florists, etc. That starts on Thursdays every week then Thursday evenings, we are prepping the flowers, cleaning them up and putting them in
bunches of 10 stems. Everyone picks up on Friday morning, then we prep for the U-Cut gardens to open up for the weekend. Our North Bend gardens are only for the
We’ve got perennials too!
public to shop for tubers and enjoy cutting a bouquet to take home. All the bulk cut flowers come from our eastern Wa. patch, that is not open to the public, it is production only.
Flower season is about a 6 week season, that can feel like 6 days at times. It goes by so fast. Then we let the flowers freeze and the process of the harvest begins. Then the cycle begins all over again.
September 2013 – ‘Gardening with Ciscoe’
If you live in the Seattle area of Washington State, most of us know local gardening celebrity Ciscoe Morris and his trusted co-host of the show Meeghan Black.
‘Gardening with Ciscoe’ filming September 2013
Meeghan also hosts a prime time show in the Seattle area called ‘Evening Magazine’. For the 2nd time in 2 years, we were lucky enough to have them film the show, ‘Gardening with Ciscoe’ at our Dahlia Barn. Millions of people watch the show and it is great advertising for us. I can’t tell you how many people tell me, ‘I saw you on Ciscoe’. It carries a great deal of weight with the public in our area, as everyone trusts and loves Ciscoe. It also works out really well for them as they have a beautiful backdrop of flowers to shoot the show with. We love having them on the farm and I believe we will have more segments in the future. It’s a win-win for all parties.
Sunset 2013
Sunset Magazine – We were also in the September issue of Sunset Magazine. The Pacific Northwest edition.