Digging Up Dahlias

This year I got many different kinds of Dahlia tubers from a very sweet neighbor couple: Guy and Judy who grow thousands of dahlias for show. They shared some of their favorites with us.

I was amazed at the colors and splendor of the plants throughout the vegetable garden. From such a small tuber, came some wonderful color and texture in the garden.

To prevent them from rotting from the freezing winter ground, I recently dug up all the tubers for storage. First you trim off the stems which make great matter for the compost pile. Then spray them off, let them dry and put them in boxes with peat and shavings. This year I labeled my favorites with orange ribbon. Guy writes with a sharpy pen directly on each tuber. When I dug them up, his code writing was still on the original tubers.

They are safely stored for winter in the garden shed, ready to go in the ground in the spring.

The Great Flood of November

The river valley below us always floods every year. This year was the worst we've seen. I took pictures every two hours as the flood water filled the valley on November 13th. This is the last photo of the day, I took as the sun set.

Here's a picture of what is looks like on a winter day at sunset. During the winter the sun sets directly behind the Seattle skyline, making a wonderful silhouette.