As one who has bought from almost a dozen different vendors or stores over the years, it would NOT likely be the vendor, as Ted said. I have had tubers from at least 8 vendors where some grew and some didn't and ordered once from a grower and perhaps 60% that they sent never panned out.It's just part of the game with dahlias. Annoying, but not preventable. I ordered a Hottie years ago that grew but never bloomed, the next year it hardly even grew but bloomed a couple of weak blooms, last year it was a dud before I dug up a 3x10 foot patch and put brand new soil and fertilizer in it and replanted the tubers. All did spectacular this year except Hottie. I finally tried to dig up the tuber and it had vanished! (Couldn't stand the good soil I guess) All to say you pay your money and take your chances. But I wouldn't put the blame on Old House - there is no benefit for a grower to knowingly send duds out or risk getting a rep for bad tubers.

Little brown spots sound like cercospora fungus to me. Check out the link below, specifically Figure 2 and the Cercospora Information in Page 2. Luis Here is a link that might be useful: Diseases of Hydrangea

Well, since I made the original post, I top dressed with a mixture of MG potting mix and my own compost, which is mostly leaves and kitchen scraps. I also watered with MG for tomatoes, and poured some very diluted fish emulsion on everything. Here's the update (3 days later). Everything BUT the tomatoes look a world better. the broccoli, carrots, beets, lettuce, onions, leeks, and peppers all grew overnight and look greener and healthier in general. I think the tomatoes have put on some new growth, and they have continued to get new flowers and set fruit, but they leaves are still all curled, and the plant in general has a sad look to it. I'm still at a loss about what the exact problem is, but I'm leaning toward it being a combination of poor nutrition and perhaps some herbicide drift from the neighbor's application. I think we are going to give the tomatoes some time, but we're also going to build one more SWC and get a couple tomato plants from the nursery, just as a back up. The two cherry tomato plants (sweet 100 and husky cherry) in our SWC are absolutely thriving - I think we will do more of those next year! Thanks to everyone for the input. I will update in a couple weeks to let you know if they lived or not! Granny - my tomatoes do look a lot like the over fertilized ones on EG's blog, but since everything else in the garden showed such overnight improvement when I fertilized, I have to think that at least one of the problems was lack of nutrients. But since the toms are the closest to the neighbor's yard, it very well may be herbicide damage as well.

I'm sorry your purchase was sub par...it's so disappointing. I had a rough day yesterday...seemed like nothing went right. Had tix to take my 3 yr old grandson to a play at a children's theater, about 1.5 hrs from my house. Had to eat in the car, so I stopped at a sandwich shop and ordered his daddy ( who was coming, too) a sub sandwich and a regular sandwich for me and grandson to share, something easier than a sub, since I had to eat and drive and we had to hand back food to the back seat. Got on the road and opened the food, they'd made all subs, and in addition had heated the turkey/cr cheese/cranberry one I intended to share...it was such a sloppy mess, I picked out some turkey for us and threw the rest away. Arrived at the theater about 30 min early, as there were no reserved seats and it said to arrive early to ensure a good spot. Parked the car and the machine to pay wouldn't work...it spit out a ticket for about every other person, so I sent my son and his boy on ahead to get seats. Never got the garage machine to take my $$, no attendant anywhere. I'll probably get a ticket in the mail for not paying. Raced up to the theater and they were still in line waiting to get in...THIS play, although not stated on the website or tix info, doesn't seat until the play time, when the actors come out and lead you in. So we raced and waited...grrr...as hard as it is to be mad at a children's theater, I sure was! Drove home, dropped them off, went to Trader Joes to pick up some Thanksgiving items before the place gets crazy next week. Bought more than my reusable bag would carry, so had to take a paper bag, which broke in the parking lot, breaking the wine and covering all the groceries with glass and wine :( Some very nice men helped me get it into a cart, schlepped it back into the store, where they shopped for and replaced everything in the bag, PLUS gave me two TJ's reusable bags for free. They were wonderful, even though it took about another 20 min to get it all taken care of. Kind of made up for the bad customer service everywhere else. I came home and drank the wine.