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Ep: 40: Grow Beautiful Dahlias Interview with Jennifer Gulizia Hosted by Valerie Miller
2.1k Plays2 months ago
This episode of the Backyard Bouquet Podcast features a replay from the Growing Beautiful Dahlias Interview Series hosted by Valerie Miller of Steel Cow Lavender Farm. In this episode, Valerie interviews Jennifer Gulizia, the host of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast and a passionate flower farmer based in Hood River, Oregon.
In this episode, Jennifer shares her journey as a cut flower farmer, her love for dahlias, and her recent transition to a new 20-acre farm.
Throughout the conversation, Valerie and Jennifer discuss the importance of soil health, land selection, and the process of hybridizing dahlias. Jennifer explains how she hybridizes dahlias, the significance of understanding soil conditions, and the steps involved in saving seeds. She emphasizes the need for careful planning and strategic decision-making when it comes to growing flowers sustainably.
Be sure to tune in to hear the full conversation, filled with insights and tips for finding farmland and growing beautiful dahlias.
In This Episode You’ll Hear About:
00:03:54 - Acquisition of 20 Acres: A New Beginning
00:05:09 - Challenges of the New Property
00:08:19 - Strategic Planning for the Future
00:09:35 - Restoration Plans for the Land
00:11:00 - Importance of Soil Health
00:19:40 - Land Selection for Growing Dahlias
00:24:14 - Leasing Land: Legal Considerations
00:30:34 - The Importance of a Lease Agreement
00:32:06 - Seed Saving and Hybridizing Dahlias
01:02:15 - Community and Support in Flower Farming
01:05:00 - Advice for Aspiring Flower Farmers
01:10:45 - Sustainability Practices in Flower Farming
01:13:00 - Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Show Notes: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/2024/10/26/ep-40-grow-beautiful-dahlias-interview-series-replay/
Learn More About Growing Beautiful Dahlia Series:
Podcast Listens Can Enjoy One-Month Free Subscription To The Dahlia Patch!
Join Here: https://bit.ly/40lbDaK
Learn More About The Flowering Farmhouse
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Backyard Bouquet podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse.
Jennifer's Journey to Flower Farming
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm a backyard gardener turned flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer,
00:00:32
Speaker
The backyard bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. All right flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips, or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom.
00:00:53
Speaker
Welcome to a special episode of the Backyard Bouquet podcast. Today, I'm excited to share something a little bit different.
Special Episode: Grow Beautiful Dahlia Series
00:01:00
Speaker
Today, I have a pre-recorded interview that was originally part of the Grow Beautiful Dahlia series hosted by Valerie Miller of Steel Cow Lavender Farm. This month-long series features conversations with over 21 Dahlia growers, and I'm so honored to be one of them.
00:01:17
Speaker
In this episode, you'll hear Valerie interview me about some of the changes and exciting developments happening at my farm.
Acquiring and Transforming New Land
00:01:24
Speaker
We recently closed on 20 acres of land, and I'll be sharing a little bit about our plans to transform this fallow hayfield into a thriving ecosystem. You'll also learn more about the Dahlia patch, my membership community for growing dahlias, as well as how I hybridized dahlias and saved dahlia seeds.
00:01:42
Speaker
If you find yourself wanting to hear more from this interview series after listening to today's episode, you can sign up for the entire series through Steel Cow Lavender Farm. This interview series is only available for the month of October. However, Valerie is offering a VIP upgrade for just $27, allowing you to access the replays anytime throughout the growing season.
00:02:05
Speaker
Just check out the show notes from today for a link to the series and for details on how to take advantage of a free month in the Dahlia patch with the code GROW24. So without further ado, let's jump in and listen to my interview with Valerie. and Enjoy.
00:02:21
Speaker
Hello. Good morning. I think we are rolling. Jennifer, how are you? Good morning. Valerie, thanks so much for having me join your series today. Yeah, this has been so much fun. The Grow Beautiful Dahlia series has been just a delight to talk to all of you growers from all over the country. It's so It's so really cool. For me personally, I have like 20 new friends. And for everyone else listening, it's just, it's neat to see and hear the growers talk in a little bit more of a long format. And I don't know, it's just, I think it's pretty cool. So thank you so much for joining us. It's my honor to be here
Jennifer’s Farming Activities and Challenges
00:03:00
Speaker
today.
00:03:00
Speaker
way. Okay, so I think you're gonna probably do a better job of explaining who you are, where you're located, what your business is, how many deluges you grow up, you have so many exciting things going on right now. And you're like in the midst of all of this change. So will you um just kind of give our viewers like a brief overview of all of the stuff?
00:03:22
Speaker
Absolutely. I am Jennifer Galitzia of the Flowering Farmhouse. I am a cut flower farmer, as well as, or I should say I'm a flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. I'm also a cut flower garden educator. I hybridize dahlias. I'm in my fourth year of hybridizing dahlias. And I love dahlias. Dahlias are my passion. So this last year I launched a membership called The Dahlia Patch.
00:03:48
Speaker
And we are an online learning community that is everyone from those just getting started with growing dahlias to those who have expanded to one hundred four hundred or those who are just dipping their toes. Into roadside stands or farmers markets and are wanting to make the switch from being a backyard gardener.
00:04:06
Speaker
to a flower farmer. And then I also host the Backyard Bouquet podcast, which is a cut flower podcast that features both backyard growers as well as flower farmers. And we tell the stories of those that are growing our beloved flowers. That's so amazing. You're so busy. I love it. And then you have on a personal like property level, you have so much change as well from where you were growing last year to now what you will be growing in the future as well. Yes, this is a big momentous week for us. Six years ago, we purchased our what became the flowering farmhouse. We had a white farmhouse and that was what kind of catapulted my journey into flower farming.
00:04:51
Speaker
And once I got bit by the bug of growing, well, I always had grown flowers, but once I started growing larger scale, I realized that I needed more land. And it kind of set me off on this path to I want and want land. And at the time, I didn't quite know what that looked like. um Over the last five or six years, it's kind of been, do I want an acre? Do I need a half an acre? Do I need two acres too? Since launching my podcast and speaking with growers around the country, I discovered I think I need more land than I originally thought. also So speaking with other growers is really what catapulted you to go bigger. Absolutely. Talking to people in the community. So helpful. I think kind of empowers you and makes you think, oh, if they're doing that, I can too. Or realizing if I
00:05:41
Speaker
For me, I realized if I only went to an acre, which is what I currently had, I was limiting myself. and by going but Opening up opportunities to look at larger scale properties meant that I wasn't going to necessarily farm bigger immediately, but I had the potential to grow my operation without having to uproot my family again.
00:06:01
Speaker
and that um i just think I also wasn't ready previously for more space. So i'm I'm kind of beating around the bush here, but we just acquired 20 acres. So we are now stewards of a 20 acre farm in Hood River. And by saying a farm is kind of a stretch, it's on what's called EFU land, which is exclusive farm use. But it is a fallow piece of land. It used to be a hay field from like the 1920s to the early 1990s.
00:06:31
Speaker
They grew hay and corn and actually grew sunflowers and how to flower for their personal use, hey um which has been really fun learning about the history of the land. But since then, it's kind of just been an abandoned field that gets mowed down each year.
00:06:46
Speaker
huh and i mean For me, soil is everything, and there's not much organic matter right now. There is napweed and thistle everywhere on property, so there's going to be a lot of restoration of this land. It's going to be a process. i mean I don't expect overnight success on this land. We've been on a journey for six years now, and we probably have two to five years of really working on the soil and rebuilding the fertility here. so that we can build a thriving flower farm at our new location.
00:07:19
Speaker
Oh, that's so amazing. Do you have um a house on this piece of property as well? There is a house. well um There's a mobile home. It's a manufactured home that unfortunately has had at least one fire. It almost looks like there's maybe been two fires on it. ah We noticed yesterday we had the land excavated. There were blackberry bushes that were overhead high, so we couldn't even walk parts of the property.
00:07:45
Speaker
And now they're gone. We're like, oh, it's even slanted. And um I've shared a few pictures. I'm working on a blog post where I'll share some more. But the place is not livable. it's We don't even have a key to the inside. it It needs to be torn down. But the way that our zoning works is that if we tear it down, we only have 12 months to replace it. So we're not in a position to replace it yet.
00:08:08
Speaker
yeah We were going to donate it for a learn to burn, but we're learning about DEQ, which is the Department of Environmental Quality. It has some very high standards and strict rules for burning something down, and we want to be very responsible stewards as we take on this project. So we're we're trying to figure out, does it make sense to burn it down? Can we safely burn it down without harming the environment?
00:08:31
Speaker
um Because that is the one thing our county does allow. If you do donate to the fire department, you can have an indefinite approval to rebuild. ah okay is that Oh, that's helpful. Yes. Wow. So right now we're living off-site. We're about 10 minutes from the farm, which presents its own set of challenges, but we know in the temporary and um Right now we're getting a fence put up to keep the cougars and bears and coyotes. Oh my gosh. I'm so exotic with all of the regulations. I feel like in Iowa we can do so much more without, I don't know, there's just not as much stuff and then not nearly as many wild animals to keep out the cougars. Holy cow, yes.
00:09:13
Speaker
So yeah, so we want to feel safe. We want our nine-year-old to be on the safe run around the property and not be wondering if there's a cougar prowling in the tall grass nearby or something, or even myself for our dump to take like 30 pounds. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yes. So we're getting there. We're literally just taking it step by step and everything is figureoutable is what we have realized. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Yes. I would imagine too, when you start to have your head in the future and more in the future and more in the future, it's good to plan, but that's where so much anxiety is. So you can only do what you can do that day or that week and I feel like For me personally, when I come at that mindset, it's much easier to handle and take on all these things.
Strategic Planning and Grants for Land Restoration
00:10:00
Speaker
Absolutely. So yeah, part of us, we're living in this future of like, what do we want it to look like? But also what do we need to do now? So I mean, everything is very strategic that we're doing right now. And it's hard because you want to just dive in and plant every at the same time. It's like, if this is our forever home and our forever farm, how do we strategically do this so that when we're 70 years old, we're also going to want to keep farming this land?
00:10:24
Speaker
Oh my gosh, so many good questions. And yeah, what a good way to approach things. So maybe not hurry through the things that you want to hurry through because yeah, you will be living with these decisions for such a long time. Yes. So the quick things are like,
00:10:39
Speaker
let's get all the trash off the property. um But in terms of like where are things going to go, we're going to watch this winter. There's a lot of erosion on the land. So it was like, I thought I was going to put my dahlias in a specific spot, but now we need to watch this winter and the spring, how wet that space gets because there are some wetlands. and They're not designated wetlands, but because of erosion over the last 25 years.
00:11:03
Speaker
we do have to really carefully watch and see like, is the spot going to get a lot of water? We're working with a nonprofit called Contour Lines. We actually have a grant for a thousand trees. We probably have, I think there's like 10 oak trees on these 20 acres, and then there's a few poplar trees, but otherwise we, I mean, it's 20 barren acres. and And so we're getting a grant for a thousand trees and woody perennials, and we're going to be planting them to the contour lines of the earth. So versus planting like in straight rows,
00:11:34
Speaker
We're going to plant them on the contours to help collect rainwater and help with some of that erosion. So it actually looks like we'll be building a couple ponds. ah Hopefully, we don't know if they'll be year-round ponds or if they'll be seasonal ponds, but it's going to be exciting because maybe we'll have ducks or be able to have wild, not wild, like farm animals that utilize that water.
00:11:54
Speaker
Oh, that's so cool. My parents had a piece of property that they bought that was like 80 acres many years ago. and they It was farmed commercially for many, many years. and My dad basically just wanted to make it this giant oasis of wildlife. and so they did They worked with some of our government organizations here in Iowa. and They put a lot into wild prairie and then they put a lot into nut plantings. But they ended up through the course of what they were doing, putting two ponds in as well.
00:12:23
Speaker
And it run it's so much fun and going there. And one of them does have a stream running through, so they stopped it. So we can go fishing. But just the amount of wildlife that comes, like so right now it's all barren. And then there's going to be so much goodness and so many creatures that will come and live on your land, just because in the course of however many years, you're going to be making it into this really great spot that's Really lovely to think about, Jennifer. Thank you. So our hope is to show, um I really believe in education. So one of our emissions is that we want to show that right now we're starting with this land that is just dirt. no Soil is so important to our livelihood, to our plants. um So we want to show that we can take this dirt
00:13:13
Speaker
heal the soil, and in the process, we can create something really beautiful with the flowers. so Oh, I love that. Okay, that brings me to so many questions. Perfect. We will definitely be respectful of your time, so I won't get to all of them. But just from our conversation so far,
00:13:30
Speaker
what are you going to do? And you don't have to go in like super big depth. But if someone had like a super barren piece of land, whether it was 20 acres, or even honestly, just a patch, because some of us that have yards, like I've got a couple patches in my yard that just really is not great. Like what would you suggest doing to kind of bring some life in from that dirt to make it into this wonderful soil of all of this stuff?
00:13:53
Speaker
Sure. Well, what we're doing that I would recommend for anyone, whether you have a quarter acre small backyard or 20 acres like us, is really understand what you're starting with. So we are starting with the soil test. We are we're having to wait for a little bit of rain to come. It's been super dry. So we were told that by waiting, we'll get better soil tests. So we're supposed to get rain starting in two days from now.
00:14:18
Speaker
ah So um in about a week, I'll be able to take some samples, have them sent in. But we're going to do a soil test that also tests organic matter to see if starting with organic matter. But I know by just digging a hole and watching that hole, there is zero worms in our soil. ah There's no signs of life other than the napweed and the thistle. And both of those are signs of compacted soils. So understand What is your soil health? like If you have really great soil to start with, you're going to be able to grow a lot. But if you're like me and you're starting with soil that maybe isn't even soil, it's just dirt, that top layer has really been eroded away. How can you quickly build that up? so For us, um I can't even barely get a shovel into the ground. It's ridiculous if you watch me try and jump on a shovel. it I'm going nowhere with it because the ground is so compacted from years of tillage. so We are going to have to till one time.
00:15:14
Speaker
And you have to let the ground get a little bit softer first a few rains so hopefully next week will be um doing our one and only two is the goal and we're gonna cover crop we're gonna cover crop the entire property and so we're gonna do a blend of probably.
00:15:30
Speaker
somewhere between seven and nine different cover crops, so things like hairy vetch, clover, mustard seed, buckwheat. um I'm going to be working with a soil agronomist to really, really figure out what our soil needs instead of just guessing. I don't want to guess. I'll throw a little bit of this because you can quickly start throwing away a lot of money at the wrong things.
00:15:54
Speaker
um I do need to plant right away. So for me, I'm going to bring in some compost. If you're planting in raised beds, if you do like a 50-50 blend of an organic mix, that's you don't even necessarily need to do a soil test if you're bringing in a 50-50 blend in a raised bed. Whereas if you're planting in your ground, knowing what you're starting with is going to tell you what amendments to add. So do you need more organic matter? Do you need more nitrogen? do you need more calcium, what is your soil needing? And so those tests will tell you, and different things need different levels of um elements in the soil yes or different nutrients, I should say. So right what I need is going to be different than what you need in your soil. Yeah. And then even depending on, I mean, when when you get a little bit further down, depending on if you're growing peonies or if you're growing the dahlias or something else, they're going to need different things as well.
00:16:49
Speaker
Exactly and then are there like chemicals like for us we did have to test and thankfully our land has never been used to store orchard chemicals but we're in a high orchard area interesting we don't have those toxins in our soil but we could have and then If so, do you need to plant something like sunflowers that pull toxins out of the soil, um which we actually still are going to do. We're going to plant because we have more land than we can plant. um The best piece of a advice is don't leave anything barren. so That's why you we're cover cropping. You want to always be feeding the microbes in the soil to rebuild that soil biology. and so We're going to put sunflowers and we're going to have buckwheat. It's going to be colorful um because we're going to be trying to feed those microbes to bring back life into the soil.
00:17:34
Speaker
yeah Oh, that's so cool. Just on another level, if you are growing the dahlias and you have to dig them up every year and then you have this like row, however long it is, or rows depending on what type of a grower you are, and they're going to be barren until you plant next spring. Do you throw some seeds in there like clovers or a buckwheat or do you put something in after you dig your dahlias or do you just let it go?
00:17:59
Speaker
Well, my last growing space was lease land. We were using that space for the last three years and there was so much, I called it dinosaur grass. I don't know what kind of grass it was, but it has this root system that basically is to keep the soil from eroding away. And so it sends these long tap roots and so cover cropping While I did do some of that, I planted mustard seed and buckwheat. I also had a silage tarp. So when my dahlias came up, I was silage tarping to try and kill off. I was i would first put down the compost, and then so I would feed the soil, and then I would cover it with a silage tarp of where the dahlias were going. And by the third year, I noticed a huge decrease.
00:18:43
Speaker
And that's because what was happening is that grass um was so, the roots were so thick that they could actually bore through my Dahlia tubers and they would wrap around them and strangle them. Like how? Yeah, it was it was terrible. And so so you have to so that goes back to understanding what is the structure of what is already on your land. So if you don't have that problem, then if you can easily just scratch up the surface, you don't even necessarily have to till if you can scratch in some seeds. So it's fall. If you are not freezing yet, you could still plant some mustard seed or some hairy vetch or some clover to add some nitrogen into your soil. And so the idea is, and I'm not an expert on this. i hope he sounds So I'm still learning a little ah preface there, but ah the idea is you want to grow your cover crop and then you want to cut it down
00:19:33
Speaker
before it goes to seed until it, not not till it, but you can, you want to mix it back into your soil. So you want to feed that to your soil so that as it breaks down and decomposes, that's the organic matter that you're adding to your soil. Yeah. Oh, that's such. Yeah. So that's so good. Cause some of us know that just because we heard it somewhere else. But when you're first learning about it, it's all kind of confusing. It doesn't really make sense on a like surface level.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yes. So that's one of the hard things I'd say about growing dahlias from a standpoint of caring for the earth is you don't want to leave the ground barren because when you when you're taking those tubers out, when you're taking all that organic matter,
00:20:12
Speaker
you're leaving nothing there for the microbes. So cover cropping is that way that you can continue feeding them when your dahlias aren't growing right there. Yeah. I'm going to try that this year. We'll see. It seems like I usually always take my dahlias out after it's freezing and it's so cold and then it gets so cold right away. So nothing will will grow no matter what, but still it's good to maybe have something. So.
00:20:35
Speaker
You could cover with a silage tarp or you could and in February, in but you could put some mustard seed down and so then it starts growing and it's a pretty quick growing. Or depending on how warm you get, buckwheat for me tends to be a warmer cover crop where the mustard seed, I noticed that if I scattered in February, it starts to grow in March and April and I don't have dahlias till May. So then I have time to terminate it and work it into the soil before I plant the dahlias. Awesome. Thank you. That's so helpful.
00:21:05
Speaker
hearing about all of this stuff. okay so Let's circle back to just a little bit about land selection and like how to how do you decide what it is that you want. so I would imagine the number one reason to get anything you'd have to really and of think about what you want to grow and what level you want to grow. so That's a very difficult decision that really only you can figure out for yourself. Totally.
00:21:31
Speaker
and Then from there, um do you have some specific advice on what dahlias really love? like Maybe I just have a ah you know a big farm, maybe I'm growing conventional crops and I have places that I could put dahlias, but I really don't know where they would best live.
Growing Dahlias: Tips and Advice
00:21:49
Speaker
Or maybe I'm a grower and I want to go bigger and I want to buy a piece of separate land like what you are doing. ah what are what What would you be looking for?
00:21:58
Speaker
Sure. Well, that's that's kind of a two-part question. so It is. When you're looking for a location to actually put your dahlias in the ground, you want a spot that gets full sunlight. It has well-draining soil. Dahlias were traditionally from the mountains of Mexico, so they don't like extreme heat. so When it gets above 90 degrees, your dahlias start to get stressed out. When it's 100 degrees, your dahlias kind of shut down and they're like, what are you doing to me? and They go into survival mode.
00:22:27
Speaker
so if You're wanting to put if you have a sunny spot that's like up against a metal building that's going to reflect the heat that's probably not the best place to plant them or if you get shade all day I did kind of experiment this year and I've got one row that's growing in the shade and the dahlias are like as tall as me all of them if not either.
00:22:46
Speaker
They were stretching for the sun, but that's not always so the best either. ah However, we had a really hot summer and that rose seemed to do better for me because they can get some shade. a they were the first to get and or They were the last to get sunlight and the first to get evening shade, so they probably got about six hours of sunlight a day.
00:23:05
Speaker
where ideally you're going to want your dahlias to be in full sun all day. They need well draining soil. If the tubers sit in a bunch of water, they're going to start to rot. um And if you want good soil too, you want that balanced pH. I think they say it's about a 7, so pretty neutral soil. So you don't want heavy clay. If you have heavy clay, you can amend it with compost. um And then as far as finding that space, if you have a backyard that's maybe really heavy clay, you could build some raised beds and bring in a 50-50 blend that's soil and compost. And then you already have that organic matter in and you can plant straight into that and your dahlias will be super happy. If you have maybe a quarter or a half acre and you're planting them in the ground, you're going to go back and look for where is it sunny? Where is that soil well draining? So like a low point on your land with sitting in water, if it's all muddy.
00:23:56
Speaker
That's not going to be a great spot for them to grow. So you want good drainage. Now, if you love dahlias like me and you got bit by the bug and you had, like I had room for 200 on my land and as I grew, it's like, I don't have any more room. What do I do? I looked around me.
00:24:12
Speaker
And so, and through my podcast, I've heard so many great examples of other people. So for me, I was fortunate. I was in a new neighborhood. I had a third of an acre. My backyard neighbor had almost an acre. And my neighbor to the west of me had two acres of land. So I first went because I knew my neighbor, Becca, who owned an acre. She had this She had part of her land landscaped and then she had this back strip that just had poppies growing through it. There was nothing in it. And I said, what are you doing with this land? And she said, well, I used to have a vegetable garden, but now that I've grown in my position at work, I don't have time to tend to it anymore. So I've let this space go. I said, well, do you think we could work out an arrangement where I could lease this land from you? So
00:25:00
Speaker
you don't want to go into spending a ton of money to lease land because dahlias aren't going to produce a ton of money, especially if you're getting started. So we worked out an arrangement where I helped pay for her irrigation. And then I provided her with a weekly bouquet of flowers during my day subscription. So it was a win for both of us. I beautified her property. I improved her soil because I brought in I don't know how many yards of compost I've been using that land for six years, and or five years now. So for five years, I've been amending her soil. There's been dahlias growing. It's also really a beautiful sight. So I would say, though, that when you're leasing someone else's land, do everything you can to keep it looking really good all the time because it's easy to let a garden get messy. um So make sure that you have the time and bandwidth
00:25:48
Speaker
to keep up someone else's space. um And make sure you're you're in agreement on what that looks like, because obviously, like for me, in the wintertime, I don't like to cut back my dahlias. I cut back my dahlias to pull out the tubers, but like I'll leave my zinnias and my marigolds because they feed the birds over the wintertime.
00:26:09
Speaker
And so some people might say, oh, that looks terrible. Or at first my husband would ask me, why are you leaving the tea posts up all winter? It's like a field of tea posts. So look how many birds perch on them. So they safely eat all the marigolds and zinnias. It's providing a haven for those. So if you're going to do that, make sure that whoever you're leasing from is also okay. No, that's not model. Yeah, because some people like to chop everything down and at the end of so but or October. And that's a totally different look than leaving leaving it for the nature and the wildlife. Yes, absolutely. um And then if you're wanting to grow bigger, I think it's just looking at what can I lease? And that that's a big can of worms, is making sure that you have a legal
00:26:59
Speaker
document to protect yourself. Both parties should be protected. So um does your lease agreement state who are the parties? What happens if something happens to one of those parties? How long do you have to get out or um does your lease carry over to the children or the new owners? um What other things would be good to look at?
00:27:20
Speaker
so like A month to month is a really dangerous thing if you're leasing land and growing flowers because what happens if all of a sudden they decide in July and you have a thousand dahlias and they want you out in a month? Are you going to move all your dahlias? Are you going to dig them all up and take them with you? and so I do want to reiterate this lease part. I didn't think of it in the flower aspect because we've always just owned our land, so it hasn't been something that's been applicable to us.
00:27:47
Speaker
But I'm obviously an artist and I talk about that a lot in the series because it's who I am. But we went through two fires in the last three years and our lease agreement that we honestly had with ourselves. so i My husband and I own our ah building and it's a big building. and Then our company is a separate S Corp and they lease the property from Val and Josh Miller.
00:28:13
Speaker
And so we had a lease set up, even though it's essentially both of us, but they're two separate entities, we had a lease set up that if anything happens, aka a fire, the company is responsible for all of the contents in the building. and And because of that, we basically had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra insurance that we used almost every penny of in the fire. And without that,
00:28:41
Speaker
It just would have all been personal property and it wouldn't have been protected and we would have been in such a giant mess. It would have not even been funny. So some of these things are just so easy to set in place at the beginning.
00:28:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And it's so easy. I've talked on the podcast with one person who leases a whole bunch of fields of their neighbors. So like they went around. This was Dee from Mermaid City Flowers. She went around and she's like, See, her you have this grass area in your yard that you're not really taking care of. Could I take this over for you?
00:29:14
Speaker
but just Yes. So she has like five or six plots around town that she can literally walk to carrying her wheelbarrow and manage them. And all the neighbors are getting these beautiful flower field gardens that she's taking care of and that she's able to make money off of them. Um, we did not get into this legal aspect, but what I see happening is if you all of a sudden thought, Oh, my neighbors got this burnt grass that they're not taking care of. What if I went to them and I worked out an agreement? Well, shaking hands is not going to protect you legally.
00:29:45
Speaker
ah you're putting your flowers on someone else's land. And I'm not off i'm not a legal advisor, so this is just not the experience that I'm talking from. But you really want to protect yourself. Both parties should protect themselves and have an understanding. And the thing I've learned, if you don't exchange money, do you really have a legal lease?
00:30:06
Speaker
So you probably should compensate. There needs to be some sort of compensation for the land, whether you're giving them flowers. Are you helping with the water cost? Are you paying a flat fee? And I'm not talking about thousands of dollars a month. Like when we started looking for land, when we lost our last piece of land, I had someone offer me land for like $1,100 a month. That doesn't pencil out growing flowers. So make sure that even if you're really excited, does this pencil out, can I make a return on this?
00:30:36
Speaker
on yeah especially if you're trying to grow for profit. like If you're just doing it as a hobby and you have a bunch of extra money and you don't need to make a profit, maybe that $1,100 won't be a big deal to you. But if you're trying to make a profit, you're not going to make a profit when you're paying someone $1,100 a month for lease land. I would also just add in one little thing too. it would also In your lease, you would want to a dress if they're spraying for bugs or if they're spraying their property at all. I know a lot of people around where we live, they love to have their yard sprayed for bugs. And sometimes we get like an overdrive from the neighbors and it kills some of our flowers. So you don't want to be, but you want to at least address this. So you don't want to be growing your patch of dahlias in the middle of their yard where they spray for everything. And it may or may not harm the ones that you're planting.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yes, that's a good point. So yeah, make sure that there's no spray taking place. um Have agreements about water usage, especially if you're having to share it, like have access to water at certain times of day, or are you competing for water with what they're also using, or do they have a source of water that you can use on the property? There's a whole host of things. So I really advise that you have a legal attorney or someone that has the legal background to help you draw up a contract. And then how long is the lease? Like, and so it should be, do you have it through the growing season? If you don't have at least through the growing season, I'd be concerned. But beyond that, what happens when the lease ends? Uh, I only had 90 days, which I would never do again. That, that is not enough time to get your flowers out of the ground and clean everything up without killing a bunch of stuff. So I talked to one grower.
00:32:20
Speaker
Who had actually after her she was given to her lease said that she would be given two years notice from the time that her lease was ending which gives you plenty of time to you're still paying during those two years and you still have those two years but that gives you time to look for a new piece of land also start taking your stuff up.
00:32:38
Speaker
The other thing I would probably not do if I was to go back in time, I wouldn't plant perennials. So something like dahlias, where you're digging them up every year, you can take those easily with you. But when you're trying to dig 500 peonies in the middle of winter, I can tell you from experience, it's not easy and it's not fun.
00:32:55
Speaker
um or or your lilacs, I killed a bunch of lilacs digging them up. so So think about what are you putting in the ground? Are you okay leaving them when the lease ends? If you can't dig them up and are you allowed to leave them?
00:33:11
Speaker
That's another important thing to ask and making sure that that's discussed. like When the lease ends, are you allowed to dig up your perennials? Are they part of the property because they are permanently growing in the ground now? So so many questions to ask. I mean, we could talk for hours just to help. Yeah, I feel like we can probably wrap up this section, but yeah, there's that is so many good points. Like I said, I've never been in that spot, but I know a lot of people that are watching probably will be.
00:33:35
Speaker
whether they know it now or not. i So good to to think about these things that you wouldn't normally think about. The last thing I'll say real fast about that though is, I don't want to scare anyone from leasing because it's a great way to test the waters before you go and spend a bunch of money on your own land. So if you don't have land, leasing is a great way to get your feet in the water and say and test it out and say, do I want to grow commercially um before you actually make the investment in farmland?
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah that cuz I don't know what the statistics are but i feel like there's a huge percentage of people that do want to go into flower gardening and flower farming that do and then three years later four years later they realize this is not for me it was fun while it lasted but i don't really want to continue.
00:34:22
Speaker
it's It's not just all flowers. There's a lot of weeds. Yes, there are indeed and bugs. Yes. Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit. um I'm going to reference my notes so I can kind of stay on topic. You have so many good things to share. And like I said, we could talk about this all day long, but we probably shouldn't because we have other things that we need to do.
00:34:45
Speaker
um Let's switch gears to the seed saving. So you have been hybridizing in your dahlias for, what did you say, 40 years? This is my fourth year growing from seed. I'd say it's probably my third year of like truly going down the hybridizing route versus buying other people's seeds, saving my own seeds, growing them out, evaluating them, all of that good stuff. Okay. So let's just start from the very tip top because I know I've mentioned this before, but I don't think I actually explained
Dahlia Hybridization
00:35:17
Speaker
it. What does hybridizing dahlias even mean?
00:35:21
Speaker
Sure. Well, so dahlias are traditionally grown from tubers. When you plant a dahlia tuber, you are growing an identical plant from the mother parent from the mayor the mother or the parent plant. So you know exactly what you're going to get. When you grow dahlias from seed, it's like Christmas morning for a dahlia breeder or someone that loves dahlias because you don't know what you're going to get. Dahlias are octopoids. So they have eight sets of DNA. And just because you have a red dahlia that you save seed from doesn't mean you're going to get a red dahlia. You might get a white dahlia or a yellow dahlia. that There's so many combinations in the genetics that it is so fun to see what you're going to get as you start getting into dahlias and being a hybridizer is where you are breeding dahlias, meaning you are saving the seeds. You can either work with the bees, let the bees be the heroes, and they can cross pollinate for you, and then you collect the seeds.
00:36:18
Speaker
or you can actually collect the pollen yourself and cross pollinate by hand pollinating. Where I am, we get too much rain too early in the season. Our season is not long enough for me to have much success with the hand. ah So in trying I selectively breed by placing plants next to each other, isolating them from the rest of my Dahlia patch ah so that I can let the bees control the pollination. So I will Let's just say, for example, um I took for Cornell Bronze and Blizzard, and I could say, I like both of these dahlias. I could isolate them by putting them 100 feet away from the rest of my dahlias, and I could just leave them alone, let them go to seed.
00:37:02
Speaker
And the bees will cross hopefully cross pollinate the two of them because they're right next to each other. So by hybridizing, we are trying to create new varieties of dahlias. And it's a process. It's not like you save the seeds and you grow it out and you say, I've got a brand new dahlia and you bring it to market the next year.
00:37:19
Speaker
hybridizing involves first you collect the seeds. So first you plant your dahlias and you're strategic about what am I trying to save seed from? What characteristics am I liking? Even though they're octopoids, some of the traits are still gonna pass down from the parents. So do you like that it's a ball shape? Does it have a good sturdy stem? Do you like the face positioning of the dahlia? So is it sitting at a 45 degree angle versus face down looking for really strong character traits?
00:37:47
Speaker
And then saying, I'm going to save seeds from these plants. So that's year one. Year two, you plant out those seeds and you say, okay, this one is a bobblehead and it doesn't have a very strong stem attachment or it's facing down. I'm not going to keep that one. So you're you're selecting ones that have strong traits. So you might find a beautiful ball and then you're going to evaluate it and say, are there other dahlias already out there that look exactly like this?
00:38:14
Speaker
Do I need to bring another white ball dahlia that looks identical to something else into the world? Or I've got this really beautiful blush dahlia that looks like nothing else that we've seen on the market before. I'm going to save this one because that is year one that it's grown out. I'm going to hope that it makes good tubers. I'm going to hope that I can overwinter it without any problems. I'm going to evaluate those because those are characteristics. Does it make good tubers? Does it store well overwinter?
00:38:43
Speaker
And then in year two, I'm going to evaluate, does it stay true to the form of the first year because their genetics are still unstable? So as I watch in that second year, if the genetics stayed stable, okay, then my third year, I'm going to start producing more of that variety. And I'm still going to watch because they're still not necessarily fully secure. So are those genetics still changing? So if it stays stable in year three,
00:39:10
Speaker
All right, I maybe could release it in year four, but I might want to build out my stock more. Most hybridizers will wait usually till year five before releasing the stock. So it is a process. It's a labor of love. It's many years of babysitting and really white mothering over that dahlia to make sure that It stays healthy. You don't want pests to get on it. You are sanitizing your shears between each cutting so you don't introduce any disease into the plant. um And so you're watching all of those character traits. So hybridizing is a multi-year process to bring a new dahlia to market.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's so crazy. So how long does it take for it to actually be stable? One, two, three, four, like but what is that? From what I've heard, and i mean I'm still fairly young in my hybridization career compared to some of the experts that have been doing this for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. But what I've heard from those that have been doing it longer than me is usually by year three, it's starting to settle. um It's pretty rare for them to change in year four is what I don't do. Well, that's good to know.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, but yes you wouldn't want to take a first year and start dividing it and telling your friends start growing this out because it couldn't take um and you want to you want to introduce something to the market that's going to um retain its strong characteristics. Yeah. Okay, so when you do take the seed, how does that process work?
00:40:37
Speaker
So once the dahlia blooms, instead of harvesting it and bringing it inside, you're going to let it continue to open up. So as it continues to open, the petals start to open, and you'll see those little yellow pollens that are the stamens on the dahlia. And that is where the bees are going to come in and pollinate. So they're going to go from one flower to another and cross that pollen.
00:40:59
Speaker
After time, um as it stays out in the field, the petals are going to start to fall off of your dahlia. Sometimes you have to help them. I'll start walking through the field and start gently brushing off some of the back petals. That's what it was. The flower can close up because you don't want your flower to close up with the petals still attached. For me, I've noticed that if the petals stay on as it closes up, several things can happen. One, I can get moisture inside the seed, which can lead to things like rot and fusarium, but also it gives pests an opportunity to crawl inside. And there's nothing worse than harvesting a seed pod and opening it up in your house to find out that you have thousands of little larva of like army worms crawling around and have eaten all of your seeds.
00:41:44
Speaker
um was right so You need to let it close up. It can be a little bit tricky in places like the Pacific Northwest where I am if we get rain. You don't want rain to settle in them. They need to be able to dry out. so all it um I think others call it this too. is I say I'm milking the seed pods and I literally will kind of cut my pointer finger and my thumb and I'll hit the base and I'll just go through and I'll squeeze them to make sure that there is no moisture.
00:42:10
Speaker
Coming out and so you want them you're helping them start dry out if you're in a drier region they tend to try out faster on their own but for me I i really have to go through and. um I'm doing a little parentheses with my fingers milk them in a sense where you're squeezing out kind of that brown little liquid so they start to dry out. And then as they start to close up they'll start to get a black tip.
00:42:31
Speaker
And you can actually very carefully, ah you'll start to recognize it where you don't have to do this every time. But if you start to put your finger or your thumb down, you can start to feel the seed pods or the seeds forming on the inside. And so what I'll do at that point is I will cut them off the stem. I'll keep the stem attached and I'll put them in water. And I will label what that is because I want to know where my seeds came from so I can track the lineage of them and watch for characteristic traits.
00:43:00
Speaker
So now that I'm in my fourth year of doing this, i and I'm just pretty much saving seats for my own stock at this point, I can really start to see different characteristics coming through. Or it was interesting, I had a dahlia that I had crossed with a cafe au lait initially.
00:43:18
Speaker
And the seedling looked nothing like a cafe au lait. It looked more like the other parent. And then this year, its seedling from the seedling looks so much like a cafe au lait that it's neat to see how that lineage comes back around with the traits. um So by keeping really good notes of those as part of being a hybridizer versus just a seed collector or a seed grower, I would say.
00:43:41
Speaker
um But so once it starts to dry out, I will, for me, because my season's so short from when they start to form go to seed to when I can collect them, I'll bring them inside. I'll put them in a vase for those that are watching with the video portion here ah directly behind me. I have some that are just sitting in a glass vase and I let them start to dry out. Once I feel that they're dry, I'll then pop the seed pod off the stem. I usually use a piece of aluminum foil or a cookie tin works really well.
00:44:10
Speaker
And I'll separate them off. So I'll take the petals and the chafe off and I'll separate the seeds. When you're collecting seeds, you can hear me kind of shaking them. I'll put them in a tupperware and let them dry out for about 36-48 hours before I put them in a seed envelope.
00:44:27
Speaker
And then all once they're dry, I'll store them in a seed envelope and I'll label what the seed parent was so that I can keep tracking them for the next year. But when you save them, what you should be looking for is you want firm seeds that when you touch them, they're not flat. So it's really hard to see because they're so small, but you want them to have almost a little bit of a bump in the center. You want them to It's not really meat, um and it's funny that I say that because I'm a vegetarian, but you want there to be a little bit of a thickness or a bump to feel that they are actually ripe seed pods versus or seats versus just flat. and So they start to turn a little bit darker, so they'll they'll get a little bit of a black. um Sometimes they have a little bit of a purple hint to them, but they can come in all different sizes. Let's see here if I bend the computer screen, but they're, oh yeah.
00:45:17
Speaker
a little bit bigger than like an apple seed, probably about the thickness of like a little apple seed where I mean by it the bump on them. so you want If they're perfectly flat, you might not have a viable seed. So for a viable seed, you're looking for a little bit of um meatiness to them, showing them they're ripe and they're ready to go. Yeah. Oh, that's so, so very cool. and Then when you start them in the spring, then I would imagine it is when you start them just like your other,
00:45:45
Speaker
bower And you start them similar to your other flowers and probably cover them up with dirt a little bit and then let them go and plant them in your garden and see what happens. Sort of. so um I know nothing about this, so I'm glad that you're filling us in. Yes. um So a lot of people get really excited because it's like Christmas, you want to start them. Christmas passes and you're like, okay, I need this excitement. I'm going to start my seeds. Well, if you start your seeds right after Christmas, you're going to baby them for a long time and they're going to get really leggy. So you want start your seeds about four to six weeks before your last frost date. okay And then I always wait at least a couple weeks after I plant my Dahlia tubers before I bring my seedlings outside. no I use a coffee filter. I like to use a brown coffee filter and I use a spray bottle. I mist it down. i line i I open up the coffee pod.
00:46:36
Speaker
And then I put my and you can do this with a paper towel, too I like the brown craft coffee pods because I can see when the seeds sprout because when they sprout they have a white root coming off of them and It's a lot easier to see that than when it starts to um Grow into a paper towel and then you can break the root. So for me, I use the craft coffee and then I spray it down I fold I sprinkle my seeds in I usually put about 20 seeds on a Now my mind's blinking on what you call it, the the coffee filter, sorry. They're cooking coffee this morning. and then i So I moist it and then I close it up. So they're closed in on this to keep the moisture in. You don't want them too wet though. If you can squeeze water out, your seeds are going to start to rot. And then we put them in a Ziploc baggie. On the Ziploc baggie, I write the name of the parent on it and the date.
00:47:31
Speaker
that I started them. And then I put them on a tray and I put them on top of my fridge. You want them somewhere dark and warm. and ah You don't want them too hot. So like putting them on a seed starting mat might make them rot because it might get too hot. So I just put them on top of my fridge and after about three to five days, I'll check on them. For me, from my own personal experience, I found that the earlier ones that start to sprout often are the open-centered ones. So I've had some who take as long as two weeks. But after three days, I start checking. And then, barely as they start to sprout, I'll take them out of the coffee filter. And I will very carefully, you'll see one side, it'll usually first, if you catch them early enough, there'll just be a white tail coming off of them. And you start to have the green coming out of the other side of the seed. That is the actual plant growing. But if you just have the white root,
00:48:24
Speaker
You can use a pen or a pencil in your seed trays just like you're starting other seeds in a seed tray. You got your soil in there. You can use a pen or pencil poke a little hole and then you just gently push the white root into that hole.
00:48:40
Speaker
with the seed facing upward and the root going down and you close in that hole and then you make sure that's moist and within a couple days you'll start to see it starting to grow and then I'll grow it out in those. I do a 50 cell tray so I want them to have a big enough spot that I don't have to bump them up again. So if you're growing less than me I mean I'm starting normally I do about 600 to a thousand seedlings a year so I use up a lot of space very quickly but if you're only doing a few you could put them in like a four inch pot to start with.
00:49:10
Speaker
and Then I plant them out about two to three weeks after our last frost date outside. But you want to once they start growing, you're going to start hardening them off outside just like your other annuals as well. Just take them from inside and put them outside. Yeah. You don't want to kill them. i No. that work You don't want to kill them from a hard sun if they're not used to that.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yes. So just this leads me to another question. When you are, you're clearly not keeping all of these thousand plants every year, let's say like out of a hundred, how many would you ah hope to get that you would actually really like that you would possibly save to the next year?
00:49:54
Speaker
Well, for me, it's really hard to get rid of them because I love them all. they Especially when I see the bees on them, I'm like, oh, these are so happy with this one. But you learn as a hybridizer, you, one, can't keep them all. And two, you want high standards for what you're going to release into the world. So I'd say that of 100, I probably keep 10 the first year. And of those 10, the following year,
00:50:18
Speaker
I'm going to probably reduce that into half or even maybe only keep one or two of those. I can see them the second year and maybe they've changed or maybe you say, I don't know why I love that as much last year. Though for me each year I'm like, okay, I have these five whites that were really beautiful from year one, but now I'm looking at my first and second year seedlings, which are the best whites? Do I need 20 different whites? Which ones do a better job? So you're evaluating them to your other seedlings also.
00:50:47
Speaker
and you're weeding out the ones that don't have a strong of characteristics. So so it's a numbers game for sure. So out of 100, you maybe will bring one to five to market someday. of no yeah And love you that's when you're being really strategic too. So because I am really being strategic with what seeds I'm saving, if you're just randomly saving seeds from all your open pollinated ones or from them from a big box store, it might be even a smaller number that you want to keep. there So yeah, if you're a backyard grower and don't have very big space, you could do seeds because they are exciting, but it's not a very good use of your space. If you want to get amazing plants, it's probably just easier to buy the tubers. Absolutely. Especially if you, well, it's really fun to grow them from seed and they the bees love the open centered ones. But if you are thinking that I'm going to save a bunch of money because tubers are $35 a piece and I can buy 20 seeds for 20 bucks,
00:51:47
Speaker
know that if you're needing to cut those flowers, well, one, you can't guarantee what the colors are gonna be. And two, you don't know what they're gonna look like. And so ah closed-centered dahlias have a much longer vase life than an open-centered. So if all of a sudden you end up with 25 open-centered dahlias that the bees love, they're probably not gonna work well for a CSA subscription where they're only gonna have a couple-day vase life because you don't want them dropping the petals right away either. so So keep that in mind so it can be worth buying the tubers if you're selling your flowers as cup flowers. Yeah, absolutely. And then I would imagine also as the years go on, you become a little pickier and pickier with how
00:52:27
Speaker
you're deciding what to keep and what not. I would imagine the numbers that you're going to keep in your four or five are going to be less than the numbers that you're going to be keeping in your one, assuming you're growing the same number. Yes, absolutely. so i Well, I grew less this last year because we reduced our field size for this transition, but I still think I had 200 ceilings and I'm maybe keeping between 15 and 20.
00:52:53
Speaker
Okay. And there's something here that you're so excited about. There's definitely a few that I'm very excited about. There was one ah that I just found yesterday as I was cutting others down because I can't be seedlings. Well, especially this last year because space was so precious. I planted them about six to eight inches apart and some of them got to be like 10 feet tall. And as I was cutting down this open centered white one that had hundreds of flowers on it that the bees were loving, um,
00:53:22
Speaker
behind it was this lavender lilac purple that was like miniature cafe au lait, and it has kind of what we call that diamond dust where they sparkle in the light. yeah of It was so full and so beautiful, had like the 45-degree angle positioning. so I tagged that one, I labeled it, and I hope that it'll store well and produce. produce I mean, I haven't dug it yet, so hopefully it'll make the tubers that can store well for next year.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds very exciting. I obviously grow lavender as well. And I don't have many lavender color dahlias, which is weird. I need to get more of them. But yeah, I feel like that's a color that is becoming more and more popular.
00:54:05
Speaker
I've noticed some of the wedding florists starting to ask for it. I think that next year I'm seeing some more pops of purple and those light yellows, which as a grower, most growers stay away from yellows, but it seems like those buttery yellows are becoming a little bit more popular right now. Yeah. Oh, that's so exciting. Well, I hope you find some more treasures in the next little bit, but that's cool that Oh, it's just very cool. Okay, I'm referring back to my notes. If you want to jump in with anything, please feel free to. Sure. I think it's just part of the fun of the seeds is that you don't know what you're going to get. um And growing growing out multiple from a same variety is also really fun. um Some you will notice much stronger traits from the parents than others, where like one variety I grew was um an informal decorative and I got balls and I had
00:54:57
Speaker
um informal decorative and I had open centered and all kinds of varieties where I grew seeds from this one dahlia this last year and I'm not not going to say the variety yet, but um I noticed that almost every single seedling was so similar. The colors were all different, but the form was so true to the parent. They were all different sizes and colors, but the form on four different dahlias. Some of them were bobbleheads and stuff, so I ah still tossed them, but I couldn't believe how the form was so consistent between all of them. That's so fascinating.
00:55:36
Speaker
It is wild. I love the genetics. Yeah. Okay. So this is just a random question. Let's say, like for me, I haven't been keeping up with my dahlias and I'm sure I have some seeds out in my dahlia patch right now and it's going to freeze tonight. After it freezes, are those, can you still use those seeds or do I need to grab them before, if I wanted to, before it freezes?
00:56:00
Speaker
I have never grabbed them after it freezes. So I don't have experience. I have read that that day that it freezes, you can grab them before the plants turn to mush um because the thing is, is if they've already formed the seeds, the seeds are going to be there, but you don't want them to start rotting because what happens is, and hopefully I can explain this correctly because I'm not a scientist, but When your dahlia plants freeze at frost, or frostmas as I like to refer to it, as um which is just if you've never experienced frostmas, please do yourself a favor and go out and just observe your flowers before the sun hits them. It's amazing. It's like Mother Nature's parting gift before your dahlias go to bed for the season. It's just as so magical as a tired gardener at the end of the season, you're just like,
00:56:49
Speaker
Wow, this is beautiful. But what happens is they all freeze. And as they freeze, your dahlias freeze, the atoms start to expand and contract. So I think I'm saying this correctly. they As they unthaw, they expand and it causes the color to burst. And so as you see the sun hitting your dahlias later in the day, as the frost starts to de-thaw,
00:57:14
Speaker
last year i could actually see like the color pigments dropping out of my dahlias and within an hour after that everything was brown and mush and flopped over to the ground well if there's already a black firm seed pod in there That's not going to burst like the color on the flowers, but all of that moisture that's coming out of the dahlia is going to sit in that seed pod and it's going get to start to rot. so I would say I wouldn't wait any longer than the day of frost. so If you can collect those now, you'll have a better odds of saving. Right. Yes. so That will be the rest of my day now. Perfect.
00:57:53
Speaker
even for the dahlias. I don't know if I'm going to get into that. I don't think I will, but it's exciting. You guys are talking about it and you're so, I mean, it's just, there is so much enjoyment in the surprise, right? Absolutely. And it's so fun to see so many people doing it right now because there's so many amazing dahlias coming out of it and ah it's going to be a really fun, I think, next five to 10 years seeing right yeah like this whole Right. The whole Dalia world and everything right now is so insanely exciting. Yes.
00:58:26
Speaker
So would you like to talk a little bit about how you dig your dahlias and maybe labeling them? I thought you had just a couple of nuggets that you would like to share. Obviously, everyone does things a little bit differently. And we have done a couple deep dives into some of the labeling and the digging, but you know just to hear from your perspective of how you do it, where you are located.
00:58:47
Speaker
Sure. Well, I do offer a course. um I have a mini course on digging, dividing, and storing your Dahlia tubers. So if anyone wants a more in-depth version of that, they can go on my website. ah I launched that last year and it's coming back out again shortly. It'll be available soon. um So that is three modules that will walk you through everything. But to give you the quick, short version of it today, as I was just saying with Frostmas, as the color bursts out of your Dahlias, everything turns to mush and turns to brown.
00:59:17
Speaker
So what was a Cornell or a Blizzard or a Cafe LA is not going to be recognizable after frost. Everything is going to turn brown. So if you have not had a frost yet and you have not labeled your dahlias, my number one piece of advice is label your dahlias now so you know what everything is. So for me, I have landscape stakes that are about 12 inch markers. And I have written on both sides of them. One, I've used a garden pen. The other side I've written in pencil. I've actually found that pencil holds up better for me than a garden pen. And I will write the variety at the start of the row. And so for me, I always grow. I try to grow at least 10 of every variety. So I'll make sure that those tags are still there. And then I will do another check through and I'll check to help. So are there any dahlias that I don't want to keep?
01:00:07
Speaker
um that maybe didn't perform well, or look if they look virus, I'm going to pull them then and there. But pulling those plants before frost, so you make sure you take those out of your stock, is super helpful. If it's the one that maybe just had a bunch of blown centers and you don't want to take it and because it's supporting another plant, let's say,
01:00:29
Speaker
I will take ah flagging tape. So I use flagging tape and I use them especially with my seeds. I have i used to just use all orange flagging tape and I could mark everything. Well, what I realized was after I dug them up, if I didn't have them labeled and I didn't have them photographed, I would have found myself in January going,
01:00:49
Speaker
what color is the ceiling and then my ceilings were all planted together so now i buy flagging tape in a package that is all color coded so i have white flagging tape purple pink orange red and then i have blue and green and so i use.
01:01:06
Speaker
Green for anything that I'm not gonna keep so if it's supporting another plant, maybe I've got an open centered seedling But I if I take it down it's gonna knock over the others right now So I can flag it with the green and I just tie that around the base so that when I go through and dig I know Okay, this is one I'm not gonna save With my seedlings that I'm keeping, all my white ones get tagged with a white flagging tape at the base so that when I divide them in the winter time, I can say, oh, this is a white dahlia. So next year, all my white seedlings will be planted together and all my pink seedlings
01:01:38
Speaker
And then i found that if it's like a coral i'll take a red and an orange flag and take and i'll tie them together and so that way i can color code because my brain has so much going on right now that i haven't had time to take notes of every single variety but i can.
01:01:58
Speaker
look at that flagging tape and say, I know what color family that belongs to.
Harvesting and Storing Dahlias
01:02:02
Speaker
And then I also use the six inch um labels, plastic plant labels, and I write garden pen on one side and pencil again on the other. So all my seedlings have a tag in front of them. And I have that flagging tape also that I can write the variety on them. And so that way they are double and triple labeled and ready to go for when they all turn to mush or brown and dry out after frost. ah You asked about the digging part. Optimum zone 7B. I know some people in my area that say, oh, I leave them in the ground every year and they come back. Well, I'm a commercial grower. One, I sell my tubers, so I need to dig them. Two, I can't risk as a commercial grower losing mine, so I dig them every year. But by digging them, I can divide them.
01:02:46
Speaker
And when I divide them, I can multiply my dahlias and that gives me even more. So if I've taken good care of a plant and I tend to only keep varieties around that give me a good amount of tubers in return. So I'll usually get between five and 10 tubers from a plant. So by digging it up, that one tuber that costs me anywhere from 15 to $35, if I can turn that into five more tubers, I have five times my investment from that first year.
01:03:13
Speaker
I can either sell those and I sell with a commercial license. I'm licensed by the Department of Agriculture or you can gift them or you can just grow your collection. So if you only had one of a variety, now you can have five of that variety. So it's a really great way to multiply your collection.
01:03:29
Speaker
i because I have so much going on in the fall i have to frost i will cut my dahlias down i read a couple inches of the stock so that i can have something to grab to pull them out of the ground but after i cut them back i let them sit for about a week unless i'm getting a lot of rain or snow.
01:03:48
Speaker
Letting them sit gives them time to cure and lets the tubers finish hardening off. You technically don't have to wait till frost to take your dahlias. Your dahlias need approximately 120 days of growing time in the ground to have viable tubers for the following season.
01:04:04
Speaker
If you're in a warmer climate, you could just cut them back to the ground after frost and then mulch around them or cover them with like a silage tarp. You don't have them sitting in the ground all wet. So if you live above zone eight and you're like, I don't want to dig my dahlias up, make sure you have well draining soil.
01:04:21
Speaker
and you want to cut them down so that they're not rotting up above and then cover them and protect them for the winter time. And if you can leave them in the ground, you'll get them earlier. Some reasons you might want to dig them up in zone eight and above though is you always start that single tuber you first plant is the mother tuber. That one will start to deteriorate over time.
01:04:43
Speaker
as it continues growing out, I call them the baby tubers that go with the mother, those children of the mother will start to multiply too. So if you wait two or three years, you're going to have a massive clump to dig up. And not all of those tubers in that clump will have eyes as it starts to break down in the center. So dividing it up, you one again can multiply, but you can take out the parts that are starting to deteriorate and rot.
01:05:10
Speaker
So like I never sell the mother. The mother tuber um usually is not as vigorous as the babies the following year. I'll plant them myself if they're still good, if they haven't rotted. Yeah, no, that's good. I know we had ah someone had messaged me about that very question. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah.
01:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, and then um I dig mine. I leave them in a whole clump. I put them in a crate. I actually don't even knock the dirt off of them anymore. and I'm fortunate I have a walking cooler. My cooler is set to 42, 43 degrees at 90% humidity. You ideally need to store them between 80 and 90% humidity.
01:05:49
Speaker
You need a storage space that is above freezing and and ideally below 50. If it's warmer than 50, you're going to start to have them wake up and start trying to grow before you get them planted again. So for me, I just put my crates with the clumps in my cooler. And then in February, I take them out, I wash them, and then I start dividing them. And I have my tuber sail in the springtime. But if you want to, you can always wash and divide them in the fall.
01:06:16
Speaker
I've noticed that when you don't dig them the day you cut them down, so you let them sit for about five days, they also start to sprout new eyes. So the eyes are visible right away after you've dug them up and then again in the spring as they start waking up. So if you're a novice at this and you're like, this is really intimidating, one, you can either take my digging and dividing and storing class or wait until the eyes are visible.
01:06:42
Speaker
um Because if you the eyes are not popping out yet, it's a lot harder to know where to divide and you don't want to save a blind tuber. so yeah yeah oh That's such good advice. I personally, I don't grow that many, but i I like to dig them in the fall and then just get them done with.
01:06:59
Speaker
And then do you check the way and where do you store yours? So I have a little unusual situation. My floral cooler is not done yet. I thought it would be done three years ago, but my husband's busy doing other things. He tells me it's coming, but either way. So we are really cold wherever we are. We're zone 4B 5A, depending on the year.
01:07:18
Speaker
But I've got a garage that's attached to my house. It's unheated, but it does have an insulated garage door. So although the garage freezes, I actually have a room ah above the garage that's connected to my house. And it's what we use it for is an unheated pantry. And it very, very rarely freezes in there. And I just have one of those little, I don't even know what they're called, but the tiny little thermometer things that's like hooked up to my phone so I can see what the humidity and what the temperature is. And on the days and the nights where it gets a really cold, like 40 or 50 below, which doesn't happen every year, but those days I just keep the door open to the pantry. Otherwise it really hangs out at about 43 degrees all winter long. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. is it theater
01:08:11
Speaker
so i Thermometers are called Govee, a brand I use, um but they're they're like 12 bucks on Amazon. It measures the temperature and humidity levels. Yeah, they're really helpful. And because I don't have a ton of space in there, i that's another reason why I divide them in the fall. And then for me personally, I just put them in peat moss and put them in a bag and in cardboard bags. And then I just write on the bag what the variety is.
01:08:39
Speaker
Perfect. And then you want to always check on those in storage so that they're not rotting. I like to check on mine every two weeks. And then the other thing, if you are storing in your garage or a cement area, make sure you don't have them sitting on the cement because that can then suck the moisture out of them. And then you'll notice your dahlia start to strip shrivel up as well. I lost some by putting them on the cement just for two days was all because I thought I was digging all of them and washing them and they put them in the on the floor in my garage. And just for those two days, I didn't realize that it really affected them. It happened so fast. Oh, fast. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. But but such good advice. Yay. It feels so empowering to know like how to best grow these flowers. It's so but so cool.
01:09:27
Speaker
Yes. And it's so different in every growing region too. Or even like you might find that you and your neighbor have different ways of storing. So if you're newer to this and you haven't found a method that works perfectly for you yet, I say experiment. So like try one variety or half of a variety in vermiculite and the other half of that variety in peat moss, or you can mix in the thirds and do vermiculite, peat moss, and ah pine shavings and see which one holds up best for you because there is no one way to order or to store dahlias. So finding the method that works for you is super important. There's going to be 10 different people telling you 10 different ways to do things. But if you find the way that works for you, that's the way you should do it.
01:10:13
Speaker
Yes, and don't be afraid to reach out to your neighbors because if you don't have a space appropriate for growing or for storing your tubers, sometimes like in these old farmhouses, they still have sellers that they used for food 100 years ago. And sometimes I know some of my other friends, they just use other friends, other family members places to store their tubers and then they don't check on them in throughout the winter. But it's more like, a well, if they survive, that's great. And if they don't, that's great too. So That's a great idea. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Okay, we are pretty close to time here.
The Dahlia Patch Community
01:10:50
Speaker
Would you like to talk about your membership a little bit? I know it's such an exciting thing. And I feel like there's so much goodness in here. It needs a little bit of attention. Well, thank you for that opportunity. So
01:11:04
Speaker
Last year, I guess it was in January, I think it was, I rolled out the Dahlia patch, which is an online learning community. The idea is I was originally going to create a full course on how to grow dahlias. And I realized because there's not just one right way to do things, I thought What if there was a membership? What if there was a community where people could gather live, get to know others in their growing zones, attend live trainings that were applicable to what was going on in the growing season, and then have a spot to also ask questions? I was like, hmm, I'm going to create the Dahlia patch.
01:11:43
Speaker
And so the idea of the Dalia patch was kind of born from this idea of wanting to create a course to help others and educate others. But instead, what it is is every month, the first week of the month, I go live with a topic that is applicable to what is going on in the Northern Hemisphere's growing season. All of those get recorded. So within 24 hours of the recording, you can join live or you can come back and watch the replay. Even if you attend the live, you can come back and watch the replay again.
01:12:13
Speaker
And then we have what's called a dahlia chat and that usually takes place ah once a month in the morning anyone who's free can hop on bring a cup of coffee or their tea their dahlias are growing or sorts of seeds and it's just a time to connect with others there's been some neat connections where people have discovered.
01:12:32
Speaker
Oh, look, you have a flower stand in my same community and then they can meet up offline or just learn from one another because we have people in growing zone four, we have growing zone 10 and nine, we have all of these different zones represented represented as well as different skill levels. We have everyone from those that are growing their first few and pots to those that are growing 800 dahlias and commercial hybridizers. so So it's really exciting to see people be able to help others. So it's not just me giving advice. I do lead the trainings. My hope is to start bringing on some other educators for some trainings in the group. ah So those are the first two things that happen each month. Then we have our live Q and&A session where members can pre-submit questions. We answer those pre-submitted questions and then we open it up for a Q and&A
01:13:19
Speaker
And that's the third Thursday of the month. And then we do a Dalia happy hour, where once a month, just like the coffee chat, the idea is so people have varying schedules. People can hop on in the afternoon, bring their kombucha or their mocktail or their beer, whatever their beverage of choices, and visit with other Dalia growers. People like to show their bouquets. And then we also have challenges throughout the month. So whether it's spotting the beneficials or having a bouquet making challenge or digging and dividing your dahlias. There's different challenges to keep you engaged with the community. So we have both an annual and a monthly membership, and I'd like to invite anyone that is listening to today's training. If you'd like to check out the dahlia patch, you can use the code GROW24 for one month free in the dahlia patch, and we'll provide a link to that as well.
01:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's it's just such a really amazing community. I'm excited. You're part of it. but but I am part of it. Yes, I haven't taken part in as many as I really anticipated. This year has been so busy for me, but I'm really, really looking forward to joining up with more of the chats and the show and tells and everything. It's just really a lovely community that you have brought together, Jennifer. I love it.
01:14:35
Speaker
Thank you. and The thing is, if you've been been busy and you can always go back and watch the research. Yeah, I do love that because in the winter is when I paint mostly. and When I'm painting, that's when I listen to all ah like all the everything. and so I will absolutely 100 percent do that.
01:14:52
Speaker
I love it. see yeah we are apple Oh my gosh. Yeah. And you're always, we as a community are always looking for more members. So yeah, if you're even interested in any way, shape or form. um Yeah. I really encourage you to use the free month membership and see if it's something that you like. And then the two doesn't like to talk about dahlias.
01:15:11
Speaker
Yes. And it's it's a positive supportive community. There is no negativity that is not tolerated in this group. So it's a place to lift everyone up. There's no dumb questions. And we're just here to support everyone's journey, um both through the trainings and the community connections of networking. Yeah. Oh, I just love it. Yay. That's so amazing. and but Okay.
Dahlia Varieties and Breeding Challenges
01:15:32
Speaker
So to finish up,
01:15:34
Speaker
I just basically ask everyone two final questions, and one is the hard one, but it if you could only grow five different types of, or five different varieties of dahlias, what would they be? Oh, that is a good question.
01:15:50
Speaker
Well, it's maybe unfair what I'm going to say, but they'd be five of my varieties. i have Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. You don't have to even give the reason, but yeah. So explain a little bit, maybe even color or shape, or you can keep it secret if you want to. it's up so I primarily sell to wedding florists as my main client outside of selling Dahlia tubers. and i I've never been a fan of Sweet Natalie. I stopped growing it a few years ago. That's what started my breeding journey is I really
01:16:20
Speaker
One at Adalia. My florist would buy my Sweet Nautilus. I grew hundreds of them. But they had so many that were wasted because they were clock faced or they were face down. And then in the cafe alleys, the florists were like, well, they're too big to work into arrangements. They're beautiful. We can use them for Centerpieces and standing arrangements but we can't put them in the bridal bouquet because they take up too much space yes so i set out on this mission that i was gonna get a blush delia so i've been focusing on that for the last few years and i probably have about.
01:16:51
Speaker
10 to 15 of those that I really love, everything from ball shape to informal decorative. um And I actually have a few little miniature ones too. And they're in their second and third years. I have not come up with a hybridization name yet. Our flower farm is the Flowering Farmhouse. We're actually going to rebrand to the flowering farmhouse on D because our new property is on D Highway, and that's part of the Red River Fruit Loop. So trying to figure out like what am I going to call my dahlias? The flowering farmhouse is kind of long. My name, Jennifer Galitzia, isn't as well known. So I'm not sure what my name is going to be. So if anyone listening has any suggestions, I am all ears on that. and So I've got a list of about 20 names for dahlias, but I haven't named any of them yet.
01:17:39
Speaker
And then i my favorite color of Dahlia is kind of that salmon-y coral. And I have a few new ones this year, but I would say that the ones that I have been really loving, um that I grew this year for the first time, copper boy.
01:17:58
Speaker
It's beautiful, not that coral color. It's more of a burgundy, but oh my gosh, is it's stunning for fall. And maybe because we're in the fall that I'm just loving the fall colors after being so busy this year, like anything cozy is just like a warm hug. So, soccer boy, Ferncliffe Rusty, one of my dog's names is Rusty, and I absolutely we love Ferncliffe Rusty this year.
01:18:22
Speaker
Cornell Bronze is like hands down one of the most trusted tried and true varieties. My florist buys so many of it for fall weddings. In terms of like a tried and true variety, Blizzard is my go-to white for weddings until now mine, my florists have mostly been using my varieties this year, which has been really exciting. Hiding for you, yes.
01:18:45
Speaker
They're like, what are these varieties? I'm like, they don't even have names yet. um So that's been fun, harvesting more of my own than those. ah What's one more? Oh, Odyssey was a new one to me this year. and but um you would It be a good one for you because it's kind of that lavender lilac. Something on the temperature, was it would go from blush to like a lilac lavender. It's a small ball.
01:19:09
Speaker
and It pumped out so many blooms and my florists loved that one for kind of the Victorian weddings this year. I mean, I could go on and give you another 20. I know. it it's wonderful fun i I feel like it's going to be so fun to kind of you know Copperboy and copper boy and um the Cornell Bronze really are popping up in a lot of people's favorite and with inroptic acquired birth probably the Cornell Bronze being number one. But at the end, I'll make a list and see how many of them overlap. It's just super fascinating.
01:19:43
Speaker
My advice for anyone listening to these lists is now is a great time to figure out where you have gaps in your colors. 100% these lists to make your list so that when the tuber cells start happening this late winter and spring, you can jump on those colors that you've heard people say are tried and true varieties.
01:20:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's really good advice. And then the last question to finish up is if you had one piece of time saving advice with anywhere in the Dahlia growing process, and maybe it's something that you already talked about, but what would you like to pass on? Sure. I would say that if you are growing dahlias to sell, whether that's growing dahlias to sell tubers or to sell to your florists or having a CSA subscription, you need to, instead of trying to grow hundreds of varieties,
01:20:35
Speaker
focus on growing want to tease of good quality varieties. Because if you can grow, like for me, I grow 100 Cornell bronze. When I'm making my CSA subscription, I have more than enough Cornell bronze that I can harvest that every bokeh can look identical. And so I can have a recipe so I can quickly put things together versus having to harvest one flower from this variety and one flower from this and another two from here.
01:21:04
Speaker
I can have 200 Cornell bronze harvested in a short amount of time, and I can keep things simple. And I can also fulfill big orders from florists because they can say, I need 200 Cornell bronze, or I need 200 bronze dahlias. I can say, great, I'll go cut 200 Cornell bronze. And it works easier for their palettes, too, than trying to figure out, you've got three of this color and two of this color. Can I mesh these together for the bride's palette?
01:21:31
Speaker
yeah oh that Great advice. yes I'd say if you're smaller scale, having a minimum of five of the variety. So instead of trying to buy 20 varieties this year, focus on getting at least five tubers of specific varieties. 10 is even better if you can afford 10 of a variety.
01:21:47
Speaker
and Yeah, excellent. Thank you for that. Yeah, everything. It's such an honor and a gift to be able to have you here sharing the things with
Engaging with the Speaker and Future Plans
01:21:57
Speaker
us. So if our viewers want to find you, where do they find you on social and then just yeah reiterate where we can get the membership and your class and hop on your email list. if I will let you Absolutely. Well, there's lots of places you can find me. so The podcast, you can find on any podcast streaming platform, which is the Backyard Bouquet podcast. um and and Now that we're done moving every week, our weekly podcast is back out. Again, we'll have another one dropping. ah The goal is every Tuesday or Wednesday. and I didn't realize that was so often. That's a amazing. Thank you. know Yes, that is the goal. The goal is 52 episodes this year.
01:22:37
Speaker
um And then our website is thefloweringfarmhouse dot.com. I am also going to be documenting our farm journey on there. So now that we're settling down, the goal is a journal entry every week talking about lessons learned and our process of building out the farm and rebuilding the soil hilt.
01:22:55
Speaker
ah pretty much on every social platform on the flowering farmhouse. So Instagram, the flowering farmhouse, Pinterest, the flowering farmhouse, Facebook, the flowering farmhouse, YouTube, the flowering farmhouse, and then the Dahlia patch. You can get to through my website and I will provide a link ah to you also to access that free month on the Dahlia patch with the code GROW24. And then I will end with a little teaser to stay tuned. We have a really huge, big, exciting announcement.
01:23:26
Speaker
ah coming hopefully by the end of October that um is just so exciting and I hope it's going to make big ripples in the flower community. That's amazing. Yay. So you want to be connected to each other. I would love to have you along on my journey and I'd love to share what I learned with all of you. So thank you for the opportunity. Oh, thank you so much.
Closing Statements and Encouragement
01:23:52
Speaker
Thank you Flower Friends for joining us on another episode of the Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us.
01:24:13
Speaker
If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to the Backyard Bouquet podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. And finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.