A Killing Frost

 We have had five or more light frosts over the past month.  Temperatures in the high 30s, depending on the moisture in the air, can deliver a pretty good frost.  None of them had really touched the Dahlias until this morning.  It was 28F, four degrees below freezing, and it hit hard.  But the Dahlias are still beautiful in their death.

Here they are in their last moments of beauty.  As soon as the sun warms them they will wilt and be completely ruined.

There is a Bumble Bee in there too

Several Bumbles were still hanging on.  They will thaw out.

Parsley and Sage

An hour later, once the sun had defrosted everything, the blackened leaves and deflated blooms could not dodge the finality of frost.  It is time to cut them all back and dig them up.  The remaining bees were quite upset, dive bombing and head butting me.  But there is no use.  There is no food left there anyway.

I was really on the fence about digging these tubers.  I have no money in them at all.  It might be fun to start a whole new batch from seed next year.  But I've grown quite attached to some of them and since I have the ability to save them, what's a few more hours of work anyway?

I was sort of hoping that they had not formed tubers, but they had and they were very vigorous.  Any illusions I had had about just throwing them in a box of compost were dashed.  That would be some big boxes and a lot of compost!  Which means, if I want them now, I have to cut them down to a more manageable volume.

I was careful with digging them, choosing to spend more time with the water hose causing less breakage and loss.  There are some beautiful tubers here and wonderful eyes for next year's growth.  Some of them are tangled masses.  It is going to take some serious work cutting them apart.

But that can wait until tomorrow.