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The Seasons of Hamilton Dahlia Farm!
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Spring
The spring months are spent packaging and shipping dahlia tubers. I am busy taking and filling
orders and shipping them out to customers throughout the country. We also make sure we have
our planting stock ready.
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Summer
We start planting in the middle of May, after the threat of frost has passed. It takes us about three
days to plant our four acre field. I hoe the field in the months of June and July and we cultivate
weekly until the second week of July when the plants have grown too tall. We irrigate often during
the summer months when it's dry.
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Planting
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Planting
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Tubers are placed on moving belt on planter.
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Irrigating
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Newly planted field.
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Cultivating
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Hoeing the field.
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Late Summer & Fall
The blooming season is our favorite time of year. It's when all of our hard work pays off and we can
enjoy the beautiful dahlias and share them with others. We spend much of our time in the field
during this time of year, picking for farmer's markets, weddings, and special orders for florists. We
sell our dahlias from late July into October at the Holland market on Wednesdays and Saturdays and
at the Fulton Street market in Grand Rapids on Saturdays. We have many visitors to the field as
well, including garden clubs and other dahlia enthusiasts. We're in the field for 15 hours most
Fridays getting ready for two markets on Saturday. It's a family affair complete with dinner and
bouquet-making 'till dark. The end of the season comes with a hard frost which means it's time to
chop the plants and dig the tubers a week later. The clumps of tubers are placed in labeled crates
on pallets and put in the temperature and humidity controlled bulb house for winter storage.
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Bouquet rack
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Jan selling at the Holland Farmer's Market.
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Cara selling at Fulton Street Market in GR.
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Buckets of bouquet flowers.
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Aerial view of the dahlia farm.
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Our first charter bus from the Lakeshore Garden
Club from Lexington, MI on September 7, 2006!
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Members of the garden club enjoying the field.
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Chopping
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Digging
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Digging
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Tubers just dug from the field.
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Winter
November, December, and January are spent in the bulb house dividing hundreds of crates of
dahlia tubers. Each variety is divided into planting stock for our own field and stock to be sold in our
packages and shipped out to customers. Our new price list is available in November after we
inventory our stock to see which varieties will be for sale.
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