Since I have quite a few people who ask me about the Dahlias that I grow, I thought I'd set aside a little area of my blog to waffle all about them. I've got some pictures of the field that I bimble around in, the main greenhouse, the small greenhouse and the potting areas where we grow all the cuttings for the year. If I ever work out how I can get them off my phone and onto the pc I'll add them to my blog.

For those of you who are reading this and are still totally clueless, let me attempt to enlighten you

I spend all of the summer bimbling round my mates back garden growing one or two Dahlias for showing. We have a main greenhouse, which is a tad larger than your normal greenhouse, a smaller greenhouse, which is a bit more normal sized, and a potting greenhouse. It might help you to know that my friend used to run a commercial nurseries (he also has an online aquatics business), so, when I say that the greenhouse is a tad large, you have to imagine something that's about 24 foot wide and 140 foot long, with no sides and frequently roofless.

All told, between the back garden, and the odd plant or two that's grown at his farmhouse in Garstang, we grow about 1,200 plants of a selected few varieties, which we grow to "show quality". Then, towards the end of summer, we enter several shows all around the country, where we compete against the countrys finest growers. We won several of the shows last year, but this year we're going balls to the wall to win the grandslam, which we almost achieved the year before last, which was our first real growing season.

Now then, before you start treating this like "Gardeners Question Time", maybe I'd better tell you a tad more about myself .

Firstly I am not a gardener, I couldn't tell you a flower from a weed, as far as I'm concerned, if it has petals it's a flower, if not, it's a weed, and if it has spikes,thorns or stings you, then it should be in somebody elses garden

Having said that, I have to admit that I get a smidge of pleasure out of bimbling round a field, in just my shorts, with the sun blazing down, with a cold drink in one hand and a smoke in the other, watching the butterflies flit from flower to flower and listening to the gentle breeze rustling through the leaves (my appologies for those of you who are reading this and have an office job and are now contemplating suicide ).

So, what's on for this week ? Well apart from the fun of felling a few trees (whilst singing the obligatory Monty Python song) and sparking of all the neighbours with a tad of a large BBQ (you have to try Steve's buttered jacket potatoes to truly appreciate the moment) we also need to finish off organising all of the beds so that we can send off the soil samples for testing.

We already have most of the cuttings rooted up and potted on, ready to go into the ground near the end of May, I'll try and get a full list of everything that we're growing this year as we've decided not to grow a couple of varieties from last year and have added a fair few new varieties for this year, including a brand new variety that we're trialing for a friend prior to it's general release next season.

Apparently, some of the new varieties are absolutley stunning, and I can't wait to see them grow and show. As and when it becomes possible, I'll be adding pictures of each of the varieties that we're growing with a few details about all of them. This won't happen for a fair few months as we don't really let them produce flowers until at least the end of June, so, unless you have huuuge lungs, don't hold your breath !

Of course, all this means that my web work tends to come to a tad of a halt for the duration, so work on the blogs is liable to be affected. Although I'm determined to get them finished and open to the public asap, the reality is, it's going to take a bit longer. I've also got a few other sites to finish, which should hopefully bring me a smidge of a wage in. If not, then what the hell, at least I get to bimble in the sun for a few months whilst being poor I can think of worse things.

Well, that pretty much all for this entry. As the season progresses I'll fill in more details about the varieties that we're growing, and how we grow them. I'm also going to attempt to keep a pictoral record of each of them as well, although that would be far easier if I get a digi-camera, rather than just using my phone.

Have fun
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