Some thoughts after a long day in the dahlia bed

Dahlias are the most demanding crop I grow and also the most generous. The work is in the spring and autumn: the planting, the staking, the lifting, the storing. The summer is the reward.

Today was a lifting day. The first hard frost came in the night and the dahlia tops are blackened. So out come the secateurs, off come the tops, and then the careful dig, far enough out from the crown that you don’t cut the tubers, deep enough that you get all of them.

Each tuber clump goes into a labelled trug. Cafe au Lait in one, Karma Choc in another, Linda’s Baby (the small white I cut endless buttonholes from) in a third. They’ll be washed gently, dried for a few days, and stored in vermiculite in the cottage shed at about 5°C until March.

Eight hours, four trugs, blackened fingernails, knees that won’t come out from kneeling. I love it.