The dahlias in the back garden are still going strong, here they are this morning before the rain fell. We’ve had a few vases worth of them this year and there’s still no sign of frosts yet. These spikey orange/red ones were originally bought as one tuber from Shannon’s. Apart from once when they were left in the ground, they were mainly dug up after the first frosts, cleaned up and put under the stairs most winters until this spring where they were divided up and put back into various areas in the garden.
A big thanks to our good mate Andy for his top gardening tips including telling us about the excellent Adam The Gardener series years ago whose top tip for dahlias is shown above. Divide your tubers and get more for your money!
And whilst looking through our old blog posts about the ‘umble dahlia we found this brilliant Earl Gateshead Big Youth podcast. Tune in and turn on!
On one page it features some great gadgets in a “I’m skint but I used to watch Blue Peter and have a jam jar full of screws and some old wood knocking around the house though” stylee.
And some gardening “don’ts” that even after all these years still apply. Brilliant stuff.
Go out and get a copy, it’s worth it even just for ripping off his great gardening look!
Last weekend featured the fastest session of gardening in weeds up to me knees history! It was a quick pop out to the garden to stick something in the compost bin, feed those starving goldfish and to lift up a couple of 
The frost earlier on this month had blackened the tops so I dug them up and cut off the stalks. It was then a case of cleaning off the excess soil, letting them dry naturally upside down and then sticking them in a cool place out of frost, light and heat which was under the stairs in a paper bag. I’ll keep a check on them over the winter just in case there’s any rotting going on. Graham Porter on 
I’ve heard advice to the contrary but I do remember reading that 
Weeds up to me knees 