Four Spring Dahlia Tasks That Will Reap Rewards Later 🌱Labeling We label all of our dahlias so we don’t have any guessing to do when it comes time to harvest the tubers in the fall. We use an industrial permanent marker on wooden paint sticks stuck in the ground for labeling. It’s not fancy, but it’s economical and it works well! We also make a field map, which helps us to keep well organized and also serves as a back-up to our labeling system. 🌱Pinching We pinch our dahlias when plants are about 8”-12” tall. Pinching dahlias redirects their energy from one big, thick central stem to multiple side-shoots. This will encourage your plant to produce multiple blooms all throughout the growing season. Quickly after pinching your dahlias, you’ll notice two new shoots will grow where only one was before! 🌱Staking or Corralling We plant dahlias in a double row, 12” apart in both directions. Soon after planting we pound t-posts every 25-ft down the row. When dahlias are about 12” high we make a “belt” of twine and corral the dahlias with it. As they grow, we add layers of twine as needed. We grow thousands of dahlias, so you may want to add individual stakes when you plant your dahlias to offer them some support as they grow. 👉If you don’t want to stake your dahlias, a dual approach will help keep them upright: •Plant them deeply so that a good portion of the stem is underground to support the plant above. •Pinch them hard and keep the blooms cut deeply so that your plants are stockier and sturdier. As a bonus, the more flowers you harvest, the more your plants will produce! 🌱Mulching Did you know that mulching doesn’t mean just using wood chips? When we started flower farming in 2012, we thought that mulch was another term for the wood chips that many people put in their landscaping beds. But actually, mulch is a term for any ground cover that covers your bare soil, including biodegradable plastic mulch, wood shavings/chips, ground cloth, lawn clippings, leaves, etc. Mulching around your dahlias keeps your dahlias’ “feet” cool, can prevent both irrigation evaporation and sudden rain shower puddling at the base of your plants, and suppresses weeds.