Tubers lifted, check that off the list

Those are laundry baskets.  Oh my goodness. That's a lot.

I finally got around to lifting the canna and dahlia tubers yesterday.  I clipped the foliage back, dug the root systems up and flipped them upside down in the garden.  Then  left them there because we got a hefty storm that night, and hey, why not let nature do part of the work for me. Today was super cold so I put on my work jacket, brush pants and boots and gloves and got out the hose.  It was cold, muddy work.  All of the root masses were sprayed free of dirt and divided.  Any that were accidentally cut with the shovel got tossed.  Even so, there are SO many and I didn't even dig all of the cannas honestly - at a certain point I just gave up.  I don't think I've purchased cannas in about four years, and all of these have multiplied from an original handful bought in a little bag at Lowe's. 

As always, I had help.  Here the geese are root pruning.

And generally mucking about with the ducks.

After we were done they all celebrated with a drink.

The baskets got hauled down to our basement.  I'll give them a couple of days to dry and them store them.... somehow.  Usually I use metal garbage cans and pack them in sawdust but there are just too many for that.  Maybe the biggest and best will get saved that way and the rest tossed, I don't know.  It's not like we're farming cannas here and need ALL of them.

I also brought in all of the squash that were being stored on / decorating the porch.  We've eaten a couple of the butternuts and I can feel a pie coming on.  It's going to get dang cold here tonight, down to 27 degrees.  I know it's November but it still seems like the cold came on fast.