TUBER STORAGE¹

I have tried SAND - too heavy! Peat Moss - too drying! Soil - too variable. The clear plastic vegetable bags at the supermarket are excellent and big enough to hold a typical divided clump. Add a 4-inch pot of dry vermiculite - the bag doesn't have to be full, but full is OK. The purpose is to create a micro environment of dry Mexican mountain soil. If spoilage does occur the vermiculite soaks up the released juices and largely prevents the spread of disease. Do take a look once in a while, through the clear plastic bag. Don't tie it, just fold over firmly. Wear a Filter Mask when working with vermiculite or perlite. They are cheap insurance. Get some. I mark the bag with labeled masking tape and pack them into grape boxes. Eighteen boxes = 300 clumps and about 2000 tubers.

Some have tried coating tubers with wax to help keep the them from drying out. The key element for safety is to use a double boiler. Easily made or bought at a second hand store. The wax never gets hotter than boiling water. Use a tongs of some sort. Tubers MUST be surface dry-- and cured is even better-- so that subsequent shrinkage will not promote wax cracking. Place the tuber into the hot wax and immediately pick it up with the tongs, hold to drip for a couple of seconds, place onto newspaper. Roll a variety up in newspaper cabbage rolls. Write on the outside. Keep as cool as possible-- not freezing. Tubers treated this way are a bit more tolerant of warmer storage. Some claim slower starting in the Spring, but I dispute this. I have stopped doing it as my storage is cool enough not to need it. Waxed tubers are wonderfully clean to handle! Also, the occasional rotted one is somewhat contained by its shell, and neighbors are protected by theirs.

My storage is in an unheated basement room that also serves as a wine cellar. During the whole digging/cutting season you should keep a note pad handy and jot down a few things.

·     those varieties with LONG tubers that need a bigger digging circle next year!

·     those that make skinny, poor tubers that you DON'T want to use for breeding.

·     the perfect tuber types that you DO want to breed.

·     the few tubers that will need special, early treatment in the spring. Maybe special starts in pots or perhaps those which will be used to take cuttings.

·     if you are really organized you could note how many you have of each variety. Maybe on the masking tape on each bag? This makes planning for your club tuber sale a lot easier.

You are bound to break or spoil a few, but never mind, everybody does! You'll have plenty.

If you only need a few for next year you can take a chance and leave them in the ground, with a really good layer of mulch, and dig and divide in the spring. Maybe you'll be lucky . . . lots of people are, but the better varieties are often the least tolerant of waterlogged conditions. And you will miss the excitement of seeing just what has grown under the ground. And then there is that 'Pot Root' idea, but that is another article. Good digging!

¹ This article is from Wayne Holland as published in the Puget Sound Dahlia Association's Monthly Bulletin (November 2005).