We grow flowers. Dahlias are our favorite!
It’s finally warm and dry enough to plant dahlias!
We’ve had a long, slow, cold, wet spring here in the gorge. After building a greenhouse to get a head start on the bloom season, it’s been frustrating to see our ground temps hover just below where they needed to be for happy tubers. We’ve finally made it, though! So this weekend we prepped the landscape fabric and laid out our rainbow rows. I’ll post the final diagram once it’s finished. 🙂
The National Weather Service doesn’t track weather history in Hood River, which makes it difficult to complain about the weather with any precision. Thankfully we have our own weather station now, so we can know and track what’s happening here at Wishful Thinking Farms.
You can see our data on Ambient Weather here:
https://ambientweather.net/dashboard/3d7f71362e5d7ff289cd334ef2178105
and on Weather Underground here: https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/or/hood-river/KORHOODR97
What is obvious is that it has been cold and wet, and our plans to plant earlier have been delayed as a result. We’ve still managed a bit of a jump start since about 2/3 of our tubers are already sprouted in the greenhouse, but we won’t be planting them in the garden for at least another week; likely two.
Dahlias like soil that’s 60℉ or warmer, and not too wet. We’ve been slowly warming and finally hit 60 earlier this week, only to slide back to 55 this morning following days of cold weather and lots of rain. The forecast calls for continued cool temps this week.
We started building a greenhouse this year to give our dahlias a head start on the season. It’s not quite done, but we are using it and it’s amazing!
We purchased plans from Ceres Greenhouse Solutions for a 12×24 greenhouse with a ground to air heat transfer (GAHT) system. We wanted to give the dahlias a longer growing season by starting them in the greenhouse. Of the ~300 that will go in the garden, 20 will stay out there in fabric pots and return to the greenhouse before last frost, with the goal of extending the bloom season just a bit longer. (Libby has a hard time letting go!)
Wishful Thinking Farm 