How to address your mums for winter.   For the farmers that are new to mums, I’m reprising a post I made this week last year as we approached an early killing frost.  Those of you further north are likely experiencing “Frostmas” now, or soon, so here’s a few thoughts on how to help your babies:             Though the plants are relatively hardy, the flowers themselves do need frost protection.  Whether that is Reemay, Agribon, a tarp, a greenhouse, or sunroom is up to the grower, but unprotected flowers will get nipped by frost.  It is wise to take the insulative fabric off of the plant as soon as temps become favorable again.  Any...

  Howdy y’all!   Hopefully you are enjoying cooler days than we.  It’s rough out there at the moment.  High 90’s and low hundreds, especially when the humidity and heat index is factored in.  I keep trying the shade, but it doesn’t work.  Still damned hot.   In the mornings, the team is busy cutting Peaches & Cream and a few other early varieties of dahlias and bringing them into the cooler.  Then they head back out into the fields to cover the baby flowers with organza bags to protect them from insect damage. Every single one of our dahlias spend their whole growing period covered in organza bags.  It’s a very time consuming way to produce dahlias, but prevents us from having...

We are looking at a potential frost here next week, so it seems like an appropriate time to talk about how to address your mums for winter.      Though the plants are relatively hardy, the flowers themselves do need frost protection.  Whether that is Reemay, Agribon, a tarp, a greenhouse, or sunroom is up to the grower, but unprotected flowers will get nipped by frost.  It is wise to take the insulative fabric off of the plant as soon as temps become favorable again.  Any cover that’s left on too long during a sunny day can cause heat stress and create prime conditions for disease to flourish.   As mentioned, the plants themselves can handle frost, but during a deep freeze, it’s...