bits and bants vol.18

thanksgiving and how to dig a dahlia

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the north, and the seasons they are a changing. Last week we had immaculate fall vibes, complete with trees at peak colourful death knell, and temperatures that were still blissfully warm. It was a perfect recipe for my favourite fall traipse through the forests and we even got our traditional afternoon at the lake to enjoy the autumn. I made my high schoolers abandon their classes and studying because I think I’ve taken my babies to that lake every year for pictures with the leaves. I was so glad I did it last week because this week has been typical fall weather with cool days, blustery days, sunny days, or all three in one day.

It’s been a month since our frost which basically killed 98% of the garden, so the majority of my garden veggie dealing is over except for some pie pumpkins that I guess I’m going to process. Paul grew over 40 pumpkins of varying variety, size, shape, and colour. The biggest weighs over 60 lbs, and the smallest are an ornamental white. I like growing my own fall decor and not spending $100 on cool pumpkins, and since my husband did all the work of growing them it’s worked out great.

All of my time is, however, going to cleaning up the garden and digging up my dahlia tubers. Digging dahlia tubers is probably the most tedious a garden job can be. But you want to save the ugly, potato-looking things because they cost a fortune and if you want the cool varieties it is much easier to save than buy again because they’re so popular.

You start the long, agonizing process by cutting down all your once gorgeous dahlia plants after they’ve succumbed to frost. Leaving a couple inches of stalk at the bottom so you know where to dig. The digging begins with a pitchfork, and you’re going to hope your ground is soft, mine is not because we haven’t had rain for about a month. The digging has to be done with precision and care or else you’ll stab the damn things and destroy any hope you have at getting the tuber out of the ground. Once pitchforked to pliability, you heave the soil and tuber clump out of the ground, and try to get any dirt that remains on the clump all over your body. Then you label, spray all the water off with a hose so you can see the eyes of the plant, then divide. Dividing entails cutting off individual tubers from the clump while not damaging the eyes, or growth points. Usually you can divide between 5-10 tubers from the clump which can become new plants next year. Then you have to let them dry out adequately so they won’t instantly rot when you put them into storage. Storage for the winter must be neither too hot, not too cold, too soft or too hard for these little goldilocks, between 40-50 degrees and with about 60% moisture. I store mine in a little outbuilding my dad has to heat all winter so as to not freeze important watering infrastructure for cattle.

Now I have to repeat that whole process about 150 times because that’s how many dahlia plants I had. Yes, it’s crazy. I pray I’m done before winter sets in.

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bits:

• The internet is not doing a stellar job keeping me away from the dumpster fire that is currently Rome. I have to limit myself to how much church news I intake a day, but it is just so hard because I am a church news junkie who has way too much theological knowledge than is healthy to have when reading current Church news. If you don’t know what I’m talking about - good! Don’t change what you’re doing! But if you need comic relief church news I give you this.

• I found this a lovely and beautiful reflection on the witching hour which I still have ptsd from having 5 kids in under 6 years and a husband who have never been home from work before 6 o’clock.

• I have a hard time thinking of something I would enjoy more than attending the Agatha Christie Festival. I hope to one day find someone who would put up with me to join me for such an event.

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reading, watching, what have you:

• I’m reading all Le Morte d’Arthur, and have no plans of deviating from this very nerdy bent for a while. My kids are already annoyed, as I’ve uncovered all the King Arthur picture books I can and have picked the Roger Lancelyn Green version for our read aloud, but I’ve promised them a binge of all King Arthur movies once we finish.

• Finished Only Murders in the Building this week along with everyone else. Never have I coveted wallpaper so much. I laugh so hard at all the cheesy callbacks. It’s just a comforting show.

• I’ve also started the newest Strike novel by Robert Galbraith, aka, JK Rowling and it’s wild how you can have no problem at all churning through 900 pages. I think she’s too big to have an editor, but at the same time don’t really mind reading 900 pages of her great dialogue. As mystery fiction these books aren’t exactly plot driven, they are much more books that live in the weeds of actual detective work, but uniquely don’t become bogged down in weird forensic evidence. I think they’re just completely uniquely done for the genre, but are not for the sensitive reader.

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I’m currently roasting some pumpkin for pies this weekend, so help me if it ends up tasting worse than canned pumpkin puree. I don’t have the emotional capacity right now, pumpkin! I’m looking forward to a Thanksgiving weekend with lovely weather, the pie, and a Manhattan.

Happy Superiorly Timed Thanksgiving,

Christy