I am new to this site and enjoyed reading everyone's experience. Quite a nice batch of information. I collect bones and make a batch of stock in the oven overnight at 210 degrees F. Sometimes I throw the bones in the gardens or grind them to use as a base for dog treats. When my beloved hogs return from the butcher, I pressure cook their heads, remove all soft edible parts to can for the dogs and cats, and throw the bones to the chickens to peck off the stuff that I could not remove. The chickens will strip them clean and also eat some of the bone, great for egg shell integrity. After pressure cooking the bones are pretty soft, so I can just throw them in the garden once the chickens have their fill. I will also put feathers in my garden after processing a batch of broilers, turkeys and/or ducks. These break down amazingly quickly. I save all my egg shells for the garden. Some shells I compost, some I throw directly in the garden and others I save for transplanting my tomatoes....I understand that the calcium can help in preventing blossom end rot. All that said, the thing that offers the most obvious, dramatic, and instant benefit to my plants in bunny poop, which is composted prior to leaving the bunny and can be applied straight away to the garden..

According to the people that should know about these things say no. Putting blood and/or bone meal on your garden will not result in the foods grown in that soil up taking these potential brain destroyers unless you eat the soil they were grown in. Here is a link that might be useful: Prions in blood and bone meal

The best amendments for Arizona soil are not the ones you mention. First you need a moisture meter, and a reliable supply of water. Vegetable gardens need stable moisture or the yields drop. Soil sulfur will lower the pH a bit and make a lot of minerals more available to the plants. The local soil also tends to be high in sodium - a liberal application of gypsum will improve things by locking up the sodium. Lots of organic materials - anything you can compost - will do more for your soil than anything other additive. Using heavy mulches helps. Here is a link that might be useful: unimproved desert dirt garden

If you ask a person how they do something they've done successfully for a long while, or even a short while, you're going to get vast and divergent viewpoints on what practices led to their success. So I just read and take into account different climates, soils, and all the variables and just end up doing what works for me. What else can one do? Sift through the available info, trial and error, and do what works for you in your area. PD: Regarding the fertilizer-- the article mentioned 'time- released' which I have used many years and it specifically needs to be in the uppermost layers of soil to be activated by warmer temps. So 'on top of the tuber' makes perfect sense to me. I would say 'on top of the root zone' is more apt, but the writer doesn't know dahlias. Russ, regarding the verbage about 'cutting before the frost' one would have to be Kreskin-esque to pull that off, I agree! I pass that commentary off to creative license by the writer, not the grower. My DH and I often giggle and guffaw when we read newspaper articles written by a layperson about subjects they cover familiar to us but not them, and they just muddle up completely at times. So a grain of salt is advised when reading a casual source such as HGTV or any other topical source including magazines. If you want to get the scoop on doing dahlias, stick with the ADS or dahlia societies' guidelines for your area, and even then you're likely to get many different opinions and ideas. That's the fun of it: what will work best for you in your area?