Yea I've had the t post driver hit me in the head a few things it's not fun 
. The ones I have are 1.33LB per foot. I have 400 of them. Should last me my entire life. I have 10 foot t post for the garden for green beans and cucumbers and hortonova netting works well vertical.
I got 10 yards of compost spread this weekend and tilled in so now off to plant dahlia tubers. 75 high and 50s at night so good weather. Will likely need rain next week
"I have 10 foot t post for the garden for green beans..." We have been using them for our pole beans for many years now. I do not like pounding them in as I am a few inches too short . Always an adventure. Breeding pole beans was a disaster as you really need to keep good records and concentrate on it. Our seedlings were terrible and now I know why they call them "string beans".
To add to the t post discussion: I'm always on the hunt for old posts. They were built with different steel or something. However, I only get the straight ones. I don't have the sanity left to mess with someone else's mistake. 
Our T-posts were made 40 miles from here from low level scrap iron. They work just fine but they can be bent rather easily as my tractor skills are way below average. I have straightened them using a crotch of a cherry tree. In a way, I am glad they are made from such low grade steel.
Dahlia Talk is scheduled for 7:00pm Pacific time tonight. I missed it last month as my uncle died. I like the idea that the old timers are there to answer the most mundane questions and you can get several different opinions on what seems to be a very simple subject. It is planting season and fertilizer may be a topic. Fertilizer is one of the most controversial as there has been a pervasive dahlia myth about how dahlias do not need nitrogen and dumping the other fertilizer elements on them is perfectly OK when that has the opposite effect of fertilizer.. Dahlia myths die a slow and agonizing death. I may get on my bandwagon and extol the virtues of nitrogen and list several of the ways you can deliver the most important fertilizer element to your plants. By the way, the cheapest way farmers can apply nitrogen to grain crops is by the injection of anhydrous ammonia,, a poisonous gas, into the soil. 
Urea pellets, 46% nitrogen
It is an astonishing 82% nitrogen. When you see those green fields of wheat or barley you know that they got their injection of nitrogen from the most efficient source. Many of us use anhydrous ammonia in our daily cleaning tasks as the ammonia liquid we use for cleaning(cheap and it really works). It is 5-10% ammonia and my son the chemist uses 30% in his work at the lab. When you get done using your ammonia wash water pour it on something you want to make very green. I can go on: when I was 6 years old the neighbor's refrigerator sprung a leak and they hauled it out to the garden between our houses. The poisonous ammonia gas killed the bush beans in the garden. They switched to freon as the refrigerant gas later on and our modern appliances do not have ammonia gas.
The idea of not using nitrogen is one thing...the other pervasive myth I see if that bone meal will benefit everything and if you only add one thing to your garden for dahlias it should be bone meal. On the other hand I have read of farmers who made their land toxic for growing anything by overusing bone meal on it. And we know how digging critters love bonemeal!
Almost no fertilizer talk. I was asked to write a summary about the meeting for our club bulletin.
Dahlia Talk Minutes 05-23-23
by Ted J. Kennedy
Our President Dan Baulig was drafted by his grand daughter to attend her first pitching assignment in Astoria, Oregon. He chose to delegate the host duties to Randy Miller in Idaho. 22 people participated and I am sure the number is lower than usual as people are busy and/or tired from planting their dahlias. Two people from Australia, were there and we got to talk a bit about digging dahlias and a giant tuber clump was shown to us along with the information that his harvest of tubers was especially productive. The other Aussie reported that the unusual Fall rains wiped out one of his plots and the majority of the clumps rotted. His main garden appears to be in better shape.
Lots of the meeting was a discussion on spider mites and broad mites. I was not familiar with broad mites and was sorry to find out they are one of the worst plagues that can befall a dahlia garden. They are so small that they are invisible to the human eye. A story was told about the dahlia gardener(Chicago area) whose garden was decimated by an unknown vermin. Our Dahlia Talk member, being all knowing on the subject of mites informed that grower that his garden had been invaded by broad mites. He pointed at a bucket sitting near the garden and informed the grower that the bucket was completely covered with live broad mites. He went through the complicated miticide program needed to handle the mites and explained the difference between laminar miticides and those that were not laminar. Now you know that laminar means the chemical will enter the plant tissue and kill mites whereas the others have to be sprayed on the bottom of the dahlia leaves. Another short discussion was on the protective gear worn by the miticide applicator and it included a full double respirator and a set of protective goggles, special shoulder length rubber gloves. Talk about scaring little children.
Another informative discussion was on the positive benefits of Mycorrhizae, the beneficial root fungi that causes plants to grow extremely vigorous root systems. The miserly presenter said he bought his supply for $26.00 at a marijuana head shop. The benefits are numerous and a story about a Santa Cruz, dahlia book author using it to on every tuber was related to us. The reason is just not the increased root mass but that the land of said person is infested with a millepede that eats dahlia roots. Dahlias inoculated with Mycorrhizae have increased root mass and there are more roots than millipedes when using it.
Not to be outdone, Max Olleue the big spender, related that he was using a product called Root Shield on his dahlia tubers and it has several beneficial fungi that have been proven to kill most other fungi infections in plants. He extolled his positive results of blemish free(my words not his) tubers and the positive effect on growth and vigor. He almost guaranteed two or three best in show awards if you use it(again my fake quote of Max but you know what I mean). He said he may pop for the improved version called Root Shield Plus that has even more bio engineered ingredients. Did I say, Max spent $200.00 on his Root Shield but he also said it goes along way and he has enough product to treat several years crop and even to give some away.
We had other interesting discussions and the fine points of pot tubers were discussed, including some of the ways that they are grown. We decided that pot tubers can be used for cutting production, for preservation of a difficult variety, and for just regular dahlia planting where you remove it from the pot and just plant the tuber clump into the ground. This discussion was also related to our discussion on the vigor of plants grown from a rooted cutting versus growing dahlias from tubers. I will not share that answer as there would be too many words and too many opinions.
An interesting question involving the hardening off of dahlia seedlings was posed to the group by a multiple medal winning dahlia breeder. So many good answers were offered that I will not attempt to list them but a consensus was reached that the seedling plants need to be about 6 inches tall(8 inches from one expert) and when they are grown to that height they do well when transplanted to the garden.
I'll second the benefits of using a product like Root Shield. I use a competing product because I can source it local and not pay shipping. My grand total is around $190. 
I give my seedlings a root soak about a week before transplanting. Before using it, my seedlings always seemed prone to some degree of transplant stress. Unlike the cloudy days of the PNW, I never know if it's going to be 70 degree or 90 degrees at planting on the east coast.
Plus I'll use any help I can get against mildew and botrytis.
Annoyingly, I seem to have lost my new Odyssey tuber.
No, I donāt mean it rotted, or got eaten, or turned out to be blind. I just lost it. In fact, I have zero memory of it at all. I got it in an order with only two other tubers, so Iām sure I would have noticed if it was missing. I remember exactly what the other two tubers in the order looked like. I can visualize myself writing the names on the blank tubers. I have them planted and labeled in my garden now. But Odyssey? Not a clue. I really donāt remember writing the word āodysseyā on anything at all. I wonder if I missed labeling it and accidentally discarded it as one of my own NOID tubers. Or maybe Iāll discover it hidden away somewhereā¦. Weird.
Do you have pets? I have one tuber labeled "pet stolen tuber". It showed up after I unpasked several orders. I don't know which order it might have been in. There is no name on the tuber or number either but it is fairly small. I think it is labeled "Either Birchbay or Connells mystery tuber" or "Pet play tuber".It is potted up and growing now. We will have to wait for it to flower to figure out where it came from. IT may even have been a bonus tuber as I don't seem to be missing any.
This is really funny, I feel like we might need a ālost tuberā discussion thread. Iāve been kicking myself because Iāve lost Mak's Volcano which was my prized, first-ever, bonus tuber! And I was so excited to grow it! Ugh, I have no idea where it ended up and I have a sickening feeling it must have been tossed into the recycling with a pile of tuber-delivery-boxes.
Funnily enough, it showed up as soon as I decided to post about it! I need to remember that trick!
Apparently I did indeed plant it, just not where I originally had planned. I always do things like that, but I had already made my mapping pass through to confirm and fix modified locations. Odysseyās tag just got a little buried in leaves and I must have overlooked it. Iām surprised I found it tonight of all nights in my post-middle-school-field-trip-chaperone sleep deprived stateā¦
calico20hill Do you have pets?
If my pet stole a tuber it would no longer be viable. 
. Heās a real menace! 
Please let us know what your petās taste in dahlias is once your stolen tuber blooms!
Juliarugula Ha ha! I will have to note where I planted that one so I can follow up on it! Its hard to know between the kitties and the older dogs. I will guess it was the kitties rolling it around but it was a bit scuffed.
I was digging in my raised flowerbed that's going to be strictly for my Hollyhill varieties and managed to dig up a sprout that split into three different sprouts of what I think was AC Devin (which I lost all of in storage). I dug around looking for the tuber and couldn't find a thing. I'm gonna see if that I can get that huge sprout to root. It was quite a strange find.
Sorry I've been a bit AWOL. Took two trips to the PNW to pick up & drop off dahlias (plants & tubers) and went to Dallas (for work) in between. I'm now in the middle of getting all the annuals (dahlias included) in their Summer pots and pulling all the perennials out of the dirt pile where their pots get buried for the Winter. It's the time of year when I think to myself "I have way too many plants" but I quickly forget that as soon as everything is in its spot and growing.
Teddahlia Another informative discussion was on the positive benefits of Mycorrhizae, the beneficial root fungi that causes plants to grow extremely vigorous root systems
The last couple years I have used this when planting. Busting the myth that dahlias cant or shouldn't be watered until they are growing x number of inches, I have been digging planting holes, putting in tubers with an inch of soil on top and then hand watering with a watering can that has some powdered soluable mycorrhizae mixed in (1/4 tsp / 5 gallons). Then I rake holes shut the rest of the way. I don't know if the mycorrhizae does anything much but I do like watering in tubers like that. The last few years we have had "unseasonably hot and dry" weather late May so it feels necessary in my loose sandy soil. I have enough left that I may throw the rest of the bag of it in my irrigation 'EZ Flo' later in the year.
Mycorrhizae is in soil if something has been growing there. Those of you who cover crop probably reap the benefits of it and you'd never need to add it. Here in Minnesota the ground freezes shortly after my tubers come out and doesn't thaw with enough time to cover crop.
Honnat I have enough left that I may throw the rest of the bag of it in my irrigation 'EZ Flo' later in the year.
Have you tried this before? Last year I had some of wetable mycorrhizae left and thought about trying it in my EZ Flo, but I worried it might clog the filter. It seems to do ok for you?
I haven't done it in a couple years but don't remember it being an issue. The product description states: "This product is a powder that has a particle size of less than 220 microns and ideal for spray applications, injection systems and drip irrigation."
I get it here:
https://www.kelp4less.com/shop/mycorrhizae-inoculant
