Sacramento Digs Gardening logo
Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Sept. 13

Cooler weather, but smoke lingers in air

spent rose blossom
Cut off spent blossoms from roses for rebloom in six to eight weeks. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)





One lesson we’re learning during these final weeks of a very weird summer: Which plants cope well with smoke?

Make observations in your own garden and notes for future use.

Expect more smoke at least for the next few days along with much lower temperatures. Our afternoon highs are forecast for the 80s, more than 20 degrees cooler than last week and below normal for mid-September. But poor air quality makes it difficult to do much of anything outdoors.

Until the smoke clears, concentrate garden activity to the early morning. Wear a smoke-filtering face mask, such as a N95 (if possible), or a wet bandana.

What needs attention this week? These tasks top the list:

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants. Wash thoroughly to remove ash, grit and smoke residue.
* Water trees, shrubs and vegetable garden deeply. Give extra water and attention to plants in containers.
* Wash any accumulated ash from wildfires off leaves.
* Pull and compost spent plants in the vegetable garden.
* Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.
* Divide and replant bearded irises.
* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot.
* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.
* Knock spider mites and their webs off plants with a blast of water. Do this in the morning for best results.
* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.
* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Local News

Ad for California Local

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Strawberries

Find our spring recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Cleveland sage ad for Be Water Smart

Garden Checklist for week of May 18

Get outside early in the morning while temperatures are still cool – and get to work!

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. Transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

square-tomatoes-plate.jpg

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Muffins and pumpkin

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Lemon coconut pancakes

Find our winter recipes here!