Hello! How has the past week treated you? I’ve been busily working on the samples and patterns for our new winter collection (more of which anon) and during these long hours and days of knitting, I’ve been listening to Alan Johnson’s autobiography.
Why? Well, I’ve developed a keen interest in the social history of Paddington and Bayswater, Kensal Town and Kensington, after reading (and thinking about, and writing about) so many Margery Allingham novels this summer. Allingham knew north and west London very well indeed, and set several of her novels there, from Death of a Ghost (1934) to Hide my Eyes (1958). An author acutely attuned to the social changes of her own historic moment, Allingham’s novels often speak to, and illuminate, the transformation of the city through her representation of London housing and households, streets and shops, families and communities. In Dancers in Mourning (1937), the decline and fall of a bright stage star into a fading alcoholic is suggested by one line, in which she admits to be now living “in a slum in Kensington.” It was in these slums that Alan Johnson grew up, and his autobiography deftly interweaves the moving story of his personal life with the much larger one of Britain’s twentieth-century social and cultural transformation in a very different way to the novels of Margery Allingham. I’ve now listened to This Boy (2013); Please Mister Postman (2015) and The Long and Winding Road (2016) and very highly recommend all three titles which are available in paperback or via audible / Libby (if, like me, you like to listen to books while knitting).
Something else you might like to listen to is my chat with author and podcaster Caroline Crampton, for a recent episode of Shedunnit. Caroline is, of course, one of the brilliant contributors to our Mysterious Knits book (which is currently at the printers) and I really enjoyed discussing the confluence of patterns and plots with her. Mysterious Knits is available to pre-order from the KDD shop, while my chat with Caroline is available on BBC sounds, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What else? Well, when I’ve had a chance to take a break this week, I’ve been putting the garden to sleep, mulching and preparing beds, planting bulbs, and enjoying the extraordinary colours of this acer, which really seems to have come into its own over the past few days. . .
. . . with shades of fiery red and orange . . .
. . . lighting up the garden
. . . and calling me outside every time I pass a window.
This acer has been beautiful through all its seasons, but I’m particularly appreciating it now.
My dahlias are still flowering . . .
with this one putting on an extraordinary show.
These plate-sized blooms are so heavy that they all need support . . .
Each day I cut another for the vase, and still they keep on coming!
This will be my first winter here, and I’m honestly not sure how bad the frosts are likely to be. The mill’s sheltered position close to the coast, and the health of perennial plants in the garden that I would never have been able to grow at Carbeth – such as agapanthus and lavender – both suggest a much milder microclimate . . . but I still thought it would be best to overwinter the dahlia tubers in a bit of compost, in the shed. Is this the best thing to do? How do you all look after your dahlias over winter? Any advice for this enthusiastic but inexperienced dahlia-grower will be very gratefully received.
OK – back to my knitting. (I will tell you about it soon, I promise). To close, here’s another pic of this week’s full Hunter’s Moon, over Kilbrannan Sound.
Enjoy your Sunday!
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You received a lot of excellent advice already; one small addition: before planting them in the spring, I use to soak them for 24 hours in a bucket of (rain) water.
Thank you!
I am also busy putting my garden to bed. The fall colours this year have been spectacular in British Columbia. Is there any chance you will offer any other colours in your Ooskit yarn? I am enjoying the patterns in Sark and would love to have a wider range of colour as the yarn is lovely to work with and wear.
Watch this space, Barbara…
If you would like to go the extra mile with your dahlias (and I think they’re so worth it), this is my routine.
After the first frost has blackened the flowers lift them all. Pat off the soil. Lay them in a shed or any frost free environment so the remainder of the adhering soil dries off. When that is the case, take a clean paint brush or similar, and brush off any soil, carefully and gently. Then put them in a suitable container ( could be plastic or wooden crates, cardboard boxes, trays) taking care that there is some air flow around them. You can pack them in newspaper or vermiculite – the principle here is that they must stay dry. Then put them in a guaranteed frost free place. And wait till spring. Then you put them in the light. When you see the new growth, you can pot them up. Water as needed. A little feed will help them along.Keep them inside until you’re sure that there’s no further likelihood of frost. Then plant them out.
So exciting to have a new garden..
Thank you so much for this excellent advice
Thank you for your beautiful post! I am loving the cooler weather, and the cosy long nights. I was thinking this morning that it has been a good year for KDD knits! Slippers Bellew, a Minke Shawl, The Article, and a water bottle cover. Oh! and Starkin mitts! I just started reading Light Eaters, by Zoe Schlanger. The world of plants is fascinating!
Hi Kate! In Kamloops, British Columbia I dig up the dahlia bulbs, dry them thoroughly and winter them in a cardboard box with cedar shavings and some vermiculite. I wouldn’t use compost as they need to be kept very dry. I dry them out for a couple of days in the house. It’s important to keep them in a zero moisture(terrible word ) environment as they are susceptible to mold. We have very cold snaps in the winter so we keep them stored in the basement which stays pretty cool.
hope that helps
Heather
thank you, Heather – I have vermiculite – I’ll try this way!
I had the pleasure of meeting Alan Johnson this summer at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, very nice man.
this is so evident in his writing, isn’t it?
Just want to say thank you for all your emails. I have tried to respond through WordPress – bit difficult.
Kate regarding your dahlias; it’s best to air dry them and store in a cool dry shed over the winter. Some folk have good luck with a bed of sand. You’ll notice when you buy the bulbs they are dry almost petrified looking.
Hope this helps.
thanks, Claudia – I’m going to try this
I volunteer at a local historical garden in Edinburgh and that’s how the tubers are treated. None are lost to damp and rot.
Will book be ready before Christmas?
Mysterious Knits will be published in a week or so. I’m hoping the next book will be ready for publication in December.
Floret Flower Farmfloretflowers.comYou will find her Dalia free mini course
Beautiful, beautiful pictures – thank you for these seasonal joys. I head out just before dawn for my morning walks, and the moon has been magnificent, lighting all the terrain and casting sharp shadows around the trees and me.
Thank you for the reading reccies, too. Have a grand week!
Hi Love your Sunday emails, and this was especially attractive with the photos of your garden. I grow my dahlias in pots and once they are blackened by the frost cover them in compost and some fleece and often they are okay, my grandad’s method was to lift them again once frost blackened and store them in trays of sand in his shed until the spring, for a man who grew up in the backstreets of Birmingham and never knew a garden as a child, he had real infinity with nature that became apparent when his family where moved to a house on a new council estate. He grew food all through the war year, but when I was a child he had beds of dahlias and chrysanthemum’s in wonderful colours. Your photos made me think of him. Chris H
Greetings from Wisconsin! I winter my dahlias in the basement every year. After the frost I dig them up and put them in paper bags with a bit of sawdust. The basement is cool and dry. Here the freezing of the ground would make the tubers expand and contract until they are pulp. I also pull up my calla lilies in the same way. I hope that this help.
Cheers!
rachael
We got to see the hunter’s moon on Thursday too, though we’ve barely seen it since because RAIN!
Overwintering Dahlias – I leave them in, in our maritime microclimate here on the south coast. Just mulch thickly. This year this was a Bad Move as the gluttonous gastropods ate off every leaf that ventured above the mulch. Consequently we also have no Rudbeckia or Echinacea (nor daffodil nor viola petals!) They’ve survived colder winters (& consequently fewer slugs & snails come spring/summer.)
However for your more northerly latitudes – I’d ask your neighbours, or the people a few miles down the road, but probably bring them in this year just in case.
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For twenty years I lived on the Rhinns of Galloway, only recently moving to Aberdeen. From our cottage we could see the North Channel on one side, and Luce Bay on the other. Although a very beautiful and mild (weather-wise)area, there were two things I missed: autumn tree colours and frost on the plants in the garden. Trees were rare on the south end of the Rhinns (wind!) and freezing temperatures rare because of the proximity of the sea. Enjoy your first winter in your new home, watching how your garden will change. It’s so exciting to find out what is growing.
I’m hoping you all stay safe from Storm Ashley – safe here in East Anglia I’ve beeen viewing the map of Scotland with concern! It must feel very safe when the wind howls to be in such a sturdy building as a mill.
It’s certainly wild out there today, Ann! A good day to be indoors
A departed neighbour grew fabulous dahlias (and sweet peas, and honey – thanks to the bees). My recollection is that, in the autumn, he cut the dahlias back, lifted the tubers, and hung them upside down in the rafters of his shed.
I also have a memory that he put the tubers in brown paper bags?
Thank you sharing acer and dahlias – you have a joyous garden 🙃
Thank you – I like the sound of the brown paper bags
I have a friend that puts her dahlia tubers in brown paper bags over the winter. Don’t forget to mist them every so often so they don’t dry out. Just be careful not to mist too much that they mold or rot. Here is some additional information from the University of Minnesota: https://arb.umn.edu/specialty-gardens/dahlia-trial.
Thank as always for an email so full of insight and information that I save it and reread again and again.
The Hunter’s Moom here in Texas was fantastic. Took up the entire sky while I was driving to school in the dark. Hence, no photos, just my memory and wonder.
Time to pre-order the next KDD marvel – I mean book.
Pat
The historian Patrick Joyce grew up near Alan Johnson. I very much recommend his memoir Going To My Father’s House: A History of My Times (Verso, 2021).
Thank you Joan – my next read!