Dahlia bust 2009

These are dahlias from last year.  I can't seem to get them off my mind.  Possibly my favorite flower, a signifier of fall, cool weather, the end of the season, and our anniversary.  Even if we couldn't make money on dahlias, I'll always grow them.  I think we need a song to express how I'm feeling about them and to remind me of days past. This year was going to be THE year for dahlias at Bluebird Meadows. We bought 400 tubers, more than I ever thought I would plant. But then we got behind in May picking all those strawberries, then it rained too much to get the soil ready, then once we got the soil ready and planted half of the tubers we got 5 inches of rain that week. Let's just say when I checked to see how many had survived there was an odiferous rotten stench in the air, a stench on par with rotting potatoes. To further torture myself, I dug up the ones that had rotted to definitely make sure they had rotted, and, sure enough, most of them had turned to a slimy yellowish stinking mush. Well, perhaps it's a bit premature to call it a dahlia bust. I guess there are a few plants in the field and in the hoophouse that we planted really late that will produce some flowers if we have a late frost.
2010, watch out.