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New month brings new season (and more heat)

September a busy time in Sacramento gardens

Green tomatoes will continue to ripen, but don't expect your plants to set any
new tomatoes during the expected heat wave this weekend. (Photo: Kathy
Morrison)




After a summer filled with extremes, it’s hard to remember: What’s “normal”?

For the waning days of summer, cooler temperatures usually prevail. September’s average high in Sacramento is 87 degrees; it’s 90 degrees for this first week.

So, these first days of September are actually almost normal, temperature-wise.

But nothing has been “average” about 2020 – and that includes this Labor Day weekend. The National Weather Service is forecasting another extreme heat warning with possible record highs over the coming three-day holiday. The all-time hottest September day on record in Sacramento: 108.

Hopefully, this is just another spike and not some “new normal.”

Transitioning from summer into fall, September is one of the busiest months in the Sacramento garden. It starts another season in the vegetable garden.

Summer veggie plants that are healthy and producing can stay in place. But don’t expect tomatoes to set any more fruit during this coming heat. If your tomato plants have no green fruit, it may be a good time to pull those vines.

Compost the old and prepare for the new. Cultivate the soil and replenish its nutrients, adding aged manure or finished compost. Cool-season leafy green crops need their nitrogen.

After this Labor Day heat wave, start transplanting cool-season favorites such as cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and head lettuce.

Onion sets can be planted now as well as potatoes. From seed, plant leaf lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy and spinach directly into the vegetable beds.

The warm soil will get these veggies off to a fast start.

Before this summer becomes a distant memory, take a few minutes now to evaluate your harvest. Which tomato and pepper varieties did well? Which ones were flops? What would you do differently if you could plant again?

Make notes to yourself – including one to follow through on your own advice next year.

We’d like to hear about your garden successes (and not-so-great results, too). Send photos and observations; we’ll compile them into a garden report card for the Sacramento summer of 2020.

Email them directly to
debarrington17@gmail.com .

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Garden Checklist for week of Feb. 16

Take advantage of this nice weather. There’s plenty to do as your garden starts to switch into high gear for spring growth.

* This is the last chance to spray fruit trees before their buds open. Treat peach and nectarine trees with copper-based fungicide. Spray apricot trees at bud swell to prevent brown rot. Apply horticultural oil to control scale, mites and aphids on fruit trees.

* Check soil moisture before resuming irrigation. Most likely, your soil is still pretty damp.

* Feed spring-blooming shrubs and fall-planted perennials with slow-release fertilizer. Feed mature trees and shrubs after spring growth starts.

* Transplant or direct-seed several flowers, including snapdragon, candytuft, lilies, astilbe, larkspur, Shasta and painted daisies, stocks, bleeding heart and coral bells.

* In the vegetable garden, plant Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and strawberry and rhubarb roots.

* Transplant cabbage and its close cousins – broccoli, kale and cauliflower – as well as lettuce (both loose leaf and head).

* Indoors, start peppers, tomatoes and eggplant from seed.

* Plant artichokes, asparagus and horseradish from root divisions.

* Plant potatoes from tubers and onions from sets (small bulbs). The onions will sprout quickly and can be used as green onions in March.

* From seed, plant beets, chard, lettuce, mustard, peas, radishes and turnips.

* Annuals are showing up in nurseries, but wait until the weather warms up a bit before planting. Instead, set out flowering perennials such as columbine and delphinium.

* Plant summer-flowering bulbs including cannas, calla lilies and gladiolus.

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