Harvest Days at Flaming Acres: From Our Fields to Your Garden
October 24, 2026 | Farm Updates
Three-fourths of the way through harvest, and we have so much to be thankful for!
Hello Friends!
What a busy and wonderful October it has been here at Flaming Acres Dahlias! We are now about three-fourths of the way through our fall harvest, and we couldn't be more pleased with the abundance of beautiful dahlia tubers our fields have produced this season.
After months of planting, watering, weeding, tending, and watching our dahlias grow, there is something incredibly rewarding about lifting those clumps from the soil and discovering what has been growing beneath the surface.
And this year, the results have been amazing!
We are so thankful for this harvest and for the opportunity to share these beautiful dahlias with gardeners across the country.
Harvesting the Old-Fashioned Way—with a Little Help from an Antique Potato Digger!
Our harvest began on Monday, October 5th, and we have been going strong ever since.
One of our most useful pieces of equipment is an old potato digger that we use to lift the dahlia clumps from the ground. It may not be the newest piece of machinery on the farm, but it certainly gets the job done!
Once the clumps are lifted, we carefully gather them into crates, each labeled with its corresponding variety number. Keeping everything accurately identified is especially important when you're growing hundreds of different dahlia varieties.
From there, the clumps are thoroughly washed to remove the soil and then allowed to dry before heading to the next stage of their journey.
Our Old Grill Shack Has a New Purpose!
Some of you may remember our little grill shack from the days when we welcomed visitors to the farm.
Well, that building has taken on an entirely new life!
Today, it serves as our dahlia cutting room, complete with worktables, tools, and plenty of lighting for our cutting crew.
This is where the real detail work begins.
Each clump is carefully divided into individual tubers, with special attention given to preserving the crown and identifying viable eyes. It takes patience, concentration, and a good deal of experience to do this work properly.
And with thousands of tubers to process, there is certainly no shortage of work to keep everyone busy!
Every Tuber Gets a Personal Inspection
After the tubers leave the cutting room, they come to me for another important step.
I personally inspect each individual tuber and stamp it with its variety name.
This is where we take an especially close look at what we've harvested.
Every tuber must meet our standards before it earns a place in our inventory.
We examine each one for:
A viable eye — essential for producing a new dahlia plant.
Good size and structure — a healthy tuber with the characteristics needed for successful growth.
Overall health and condition — firm, sound tubers free from concerning damage or defects.
Tubers that don't meet our standards are culled.
The best tubers are retained for our own planting stock, and the most superior market-quality tubers are carefully sorted and set aside for our customers.
We want the tubers you receive to reflect the same care and attention we give to the dahlias growing in our own fields.
Counting Every Tuber, One Variety at a Time
Once our market-quality tubers have passed inspection, they are counted and recorded.
This is an especially important part of our harvest because it allows us to update our online shop with the actual number of tubers available for each variety.
We don't have to guess how many tubers a clump might produce or estimate what we can offer. We wait until the tubers have been harvested, divided, and inspected before adding those numbers to our inventory.
It's a time-consuming process, but one that gives us confidence in what we offer our customers.
And it has led to some wonderful surprises this year!
Several varieties have produced more tubers than we anticipated, giving us the opportunity to make additional dahlias available in our online catalog.
Harvest Mondays Continue—10 More Varieties Coming!
If you've been following along with our Harvest Mondays, you already know that we've been adding new varieties to our online shop as harvest progresses.
We've added 15 varieties over the past two Mondays, and we're getting ready to add another 10 varieties this coming Monday, October 26th!
That's 25 additional varieties in just three weeks!
Some are familiar favorites, while others are varieties we've been especially excited to share.
We encourage you to check the online shop each Monday to see what's new. With the quantities of some varieties being limited, you never know when a dahlia you've been hoping to find might make an appearance!
Explore Our Online Shop
Preparing for the Journey Ahead
We anticipate completing our harvest and processing work within the next week.
Once that work is finished, we'll begin preparing our fall shipment orders for customers who have requested them.
The remaining tubers will be carefully placed into our climate-controlled storage buildings, where they'll spend the winter resting until spring shipping begins.
We've also doubled our storage capacity over last year, an important improvement as our dahlia operation continues to grow.
Proper storage is a critical part of growing and selling dahlia tubers. Our goal is to keep them healthy and viable throughout the winter so they're ready for a wonderful new growing season.
A Grateful Heart at Harvest Time
As we look across the fields that were once filled with thousands of colorful blooms, it's hard to believe how quickly another growing season has passed.
There is something bittersweet about harvest. We say goodbye to the flowers we've enjoyed all summer, but beneath the soil we discover the promise of next year's garden.
Every healthy tuber represents another opportunity for a beautiful dahlia to grow, bloom, and bring joy.
We're grateful for the abundance we've been given this year, for the helping hands that make this harvest possible, and for all of you who have chosen to make Flaming Acres Dahlias part of your gardening adventures.
Thank you for following along with us through the seasons. We love sharing not only the beauty of our dahlias but also the work, challenges, discoveries, and blessings that come with growing them.
Be sure to visit us Monday, October 26th, when 10 more beautiful varieties join our online shop!
Until then, happy gardening and God bless!
Debra Flaming
Growing beautiful beginnings, one tuber at a time.
