Barbara, I think you asked about shears and knives used to harvest tubers, but I assembled nearly everything I will use in the coming days to get the dahlias cut down, cut apart, labelled, treated, cleaned, sorted and stored for winter. The only thing missing are the shovel, 4 tined fork, lopping shears for stalks bigger than a pruning shears but less than the PVC pipe cutter, plastic wrap and blue 3M tape and alot of towels and rubber gloves.

I feel the cold and wet settling into my bones and oh, how I dread it!

Here's the assembly on my garage freezer. Note: Upright in the background is a rather swanky wood framed screening dealy bopper made by my husband for me that is an excellent help for rinsing the initial dirt off a dirty clump of tubers, or screening soil from rocks, or letting tuber clumps dry overnight. 1/2 inch hardware cloth lines it. If it breaks with wear, replace it. It's a multi-tasker I highly recommend and could be constructed for under $15 I bet.

Like the impressive machete on the right? If you leave tubers in the ground a few years, you'll be putting this on your 'wish list' too. Hubby came home with the razor sharp weapon to help manage brush around here and was in the house weeping with a 3 inch gash to his forearm within 30 minutes LOL. Never send a non-gardener to do a gardener's work.... If I leave tubers in the ground a few years, for whatever reason, this comes in handy.

{{gwi:659798}}

What else is there?

5 gallon bucket for rinsing tuber clumps or individual tubers in 10% bleach water, or plain water as my mood dictates.

Bleach- 1 part bleach, 10 parts water. Acts as an antibacterial, can't be good for fungi either, and gets your tubers really squeaky clean. Wear rubber gloves!

Gallon Ziploc type bags- labelled for each variety while sorting before wrapping. I might do myself a favor by skipping this step, but they came in handy last Fall and also last Spring to see how many of each variety I had on hand. Also useful at planting time if you have any method to your planting patterns and want certain varieties certain places.

Another gallon Ziploc bag with vermiculite and sulphur inside to 'shake and bake' cut tubers for winter storage. I'd guess about 1/3 to 1/2 cup sulphur powder in 5 cups vermiculite are usually inside. Replace sulphur when yellow coating gets faint on tubers. shake gently, roll over gently; the idea is to coat them- not kill them!

Spray head for hose to wash off clumps and tubers. Use a gentle shower setting or you might tear fragile skins on newly dug tubers- (I say that, but by about clump #50 I am blasting the !*!*# out of those clumps with the hose set on JET SKI.) I also use a stream squirt bottle sprayer to get into little tiny crevices sometimes when I need to see what's going on there before cutting.

Garden Sulfur, I would spell it Sulphur, but whatever...

cheap and useful. Look at farm and feed stores before a nursery. Granny says pharmacies can order elemental sulphur for you too. Incredibly cheap and long lasting.

Marking Pens, Marking pencils. Highly recommend the No Blot Ink in a Pencil for writing on damp tubers. Store it in a baggie with one of those dessicant capsules or packets you get in pill bottles. The pencils are very sensitive to moisture and the dessicant keeps them dry, doesn't waste the ink leaking all over inside the baggie.

Sharpies: dahlia grower's best friend after the machete! LOL They write well on labels, on stakes, on tubers for proper identification (although I find they don't work as well as the No Blot on any sort of damp tuber.) Dry or dusted tubers: yes.

Lysol spray: stinky no matter what the label tells you about scent, but good for protecting fresh tuber cuts, or, in case of brown rot cleaned out from a tuber, good for protecting it from further rot there once dispatched with a cutting tool.

Cutting tools: Some dahlia stalks can be sapling size in girth and toughness. I use lopping shears where I can, pruning shears if possible, but if not: the PVC pipe cutter (black handles in photo) with wratcheting (sp?) feature is unbeatable! It will expand to accommodate a stalk of about 1.5-2 inches and has enough pressure to work right through the toughest customer- same goes for massive tuber clumps or stems during processing. Sometimes you have to cut from two sides, or get the machete. Or the riding mower.

Other finer cutting tools are the "fruit secateur" a thin bladed pruning shears that is also sturdy and good for stabbing into thin places on a clump or stem to get the cut just right. Ditto for the "florist shears:" excellent and fast for trimming nuisance roots and rootlets to get them out of one's way. I used a knife one year, still use it in the kitchen, but I just don't like the long blade and danger when poking around tough stalks or dense tubers, so I like to stick to things I can grip and easily control.

Last but not least: Chisel or screwdriver, good ole hammer and a wood block or towel. If you have a monster clump that cannot be dissected with any tools, you just need to aim that chisel somewhere in the middle and pound away to divide and conquer into manageable parts. BUT before pounding/chiseling, try to support the bottom center of the clump with the wood block to avoid the hammer pressure breaking off thin tuber necks. I found a terry towel bunched up alone, or over the wood block helped buffer the hammer blows too. It's a tough business, splitting dahlias...

Here's a view of the fruit secateur, let's just call it skinny pruning shears, shall we? Thin sharp blades, lightweight, easy to maneuver.

{{gwi:659802}}

and the florist shears--ditto on the thin and sharp blades.

The neighbor puppy at my purple Sharpie! I saved it with some tape on the end LOL!

{{gwi:659805}}

That's all I can think of mentioning now for digging success, except lots of tylenol or ibuprofen, warm socks and hand lotion invariably come in handy.