In late January I received some Dahlia coccinea seeds from an interesting company. These were selected for producing good tasting, edible tubers. Apparently essentially all Dahlias are edible, but this species is thought to be tastiest. The flowers are also highly ornamental (and edible). I can provide more details to the people I'm sending them to, although I may have given enough information to find it with a search. These are relatives of other edible tubers, such as Jerusalem Artichokes and Yacon.
Dahlia coccinea is from fairly high elevation in Mexico, and I believe is unhappy with hot summers. So these are probably not ideal for the Deep South.
Anyway, they sent a reasonable number of seeds. It's easy to tell the likely viable ones, just by plumpness--much like a Nepenthes seed. So I picked out some and planted them. I sowed on the surface, put in a plastic bag, and incubated under lights, which is how I've sowed Dahlia seeds in the past. The company recommends burying them with soil, which I did not do. Most all germinated, and in 5 days. Now I have 20 plants.
I'll send them in these coin cases in a regular envelope to prevent crushing. I've mentioned using these cases in a different post.
I think there are about 12 of the plump seeds in each, which should be enough to get several plants, hopefully as many as 8-10. I would plant them immediately, inside. They will die with frost.
I'll send them completely free to the first two active members (contributing in some way to as far as comments or posts). List your name below.
Seedlings, 23 days after sowing seeds:
Dahlia coccinea is from fairly high elevation in Mexico, and I believe is unhappy with hot summers. So these are probably not ideal for the Deep South.
Anyway, they sent a reasonable number of seeds. It's easy to tell the likely viable ones, just by plumpness--much like a Nepenthes seed. So I picked out some and planted them. I sowed on the surface, put in a plastic bag, and incubated under lights, which is how I've sowed Dahlia seeds in the past. The company recommends burying them with soil, which I did not do. Most all germinated, and in 5 days. Now I have 20 plants.
I'll send them in these coin cases in a regular envelope to prevent crushing. I've mentioned using these cases in a different post.
I think there are about 12 of the plump seeds in each, which should be enough to get several plants, hopefully as many as 8-10. I would plant them immediately, inside. They will die with frost.
I'll send them completely free to the first two active members (contributing in some way to as far as comments or posts). List your name below.
Seedlings, 23 days after sowing seeds:
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