Happy Frostmas
Honoring the end
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Lao Tzu
I don’t know who started it – whether it’s an old custom or just something someone made up fairly recently one chilly morning – but on Instagram, farmers greet each other with a cheerful “Happy Frostmas!” when the first hard freeze arrives. There’s no sarcasm in it. It’s a genuine, knowing relief, the kind that comes only after months of scrapes and sweat and sunburns. Another season in the books. Another battle fought, not always with victory, but with grit. And that was enough
Most flower farms begin winding down not long after Labor Day. Fall rains flatten the boldest stems. Winds rearrange the field overnight. Some varieties bloom out gracefully, others melt into mush. By October, the march toward frost isn’t a tragedy, it’s a benediction. A curtain drop. The moment when the chaos settles, and everything finally agrees to stop.
Now, if frost comes early, I’ll fight it. I’ve thrown old bedsheets over rows. Run sprinklers into the night. I’ve even lit a bonfire in the field just to see if it would hold the cold at bay. I doubt it did, but it felt noble at the time. Not because I need the flowers. The tubers are what matter, tucked down deep where frost can’t reach. But there’s something about those last weeks. Standing in a field in mid-October, geese calling overhead, the low sun catching each bloom in amber light, I’m not ready to give that up.
And yet when the real frost finally lands, the one that blackens the leaves and silences the field, there’s peace in surrendering to it. That morning, I don’t need coffee. I just pull on boots and walk out into it. The frost crunches underfoot. The flowers, every petal and leaf, are dusted in silver, as if sugar-dipped. It’s the most magical moment of the whole year, and the most fleeting. By the time the sun clears the trees, it’s already melting away.
What follows is quieter. The urgency’s gone. The tops are toast, but the energy has already moved underground, where it matters. I let the plants stand for a while. Cut too soon and the hollow stems can wick water down into the crown, setting rot in motion. So I wait. Let the plant seal itself off, let the weather hold steady, then dig when the time feels right.
I dig with a spading fork in the heavier patches, not a shovel, it’s gentler. Loosen the soil. Lift from below. Knock the earth off. No washing yet, just out of the ground and onto a table, somewhere dry with good airflow. The cure begins.
Curing isn’t complicated. It’s rest. Somewhere out of the sun, out of the wind, where the skins can toughen and the wounds can close. A shed, a greenhouse, a garage, it doesn’t need to be fancy, just steady.
After a couple weeks, the real decision comes: divide now or wait? Some growers leave clumps whole until spring. Others divide as soon as the stems are crisp. There’s no right answer, just the one that suits your setup, your storage space, your patience.
If you do divide, do it slow. Especially when the clumps are thick and twisted, like the knuckles of old hands. You start to learn the feel of good necks, the look of strong crowns. It’s satisfying, right up until you’re doing a few thousand of them. Then it’s cold, repetitive, and unforgiving on your joints. I take breaks. Switch between knives and snips depending on how my hands feel. Try to move through the piles without punishing my body.
The easiest way to divide a clump? Toss it in the air and let it hit the ground. Not elegant. But effective, at least for your own stock. (Don’t try that with tubers you’re selling.)
And somewhere in the middle of all that, the next season begins. Lights go on. Soil trays get filled. Shoots emerge. Cuttings are taken. The last clump from this year’s harvest still sits drying, while the first cuttings of next season are rooting.
It’s a strange overlap, to hold the end of one season in your left hand, and the beginning of another in your right.
But dahlias don’t really know winter, not the way we do. Rest isn’t part of their nature. Give them warmth and light, and they’ll get right back to growing.
The field is quiet now. But the promise is still here, tucked in crates, stacked on shelves, hidden beneath tarps, waiting. And so are we, in our own way. Resting. Reflecting. Letting the work settle into the body like muscle memory, before it all begins again.
Happy Frostmas.