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Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Aug. 9

Get to work early during 'average' August weather

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED AUG 8, 2020

Keep those peppers and other summer veggies harvested to prompt the plants to keep producing. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Clear, sunny and hot -- what would you expect during early August in Sacramento? That's the forecast for most of this coming week.

According to the National Weather Service, expect highs to hit 95 or 96 degrees most afternoons. In other words, "average" for early August. Thankfully, overnight lows will keep dipping down to around 60 degrees and light Delta breezes should bring a little relief, too. Make the most of those cool mornings.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting. Always water before feeding.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Pinch off dead flowers from perennials and annuals to lengthen their summer bloom.

* Deadhead roses for fall flowers. Look out for aphids and whiteflies.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insect pests and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then, feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production next year.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

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Garden Checklist for week of July 21

Your garden needs you!

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* Feed vegetable plants bone meal, rock phosphate or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting. (But wait until daily high temperatures drop out of the 100s.)

* Don’t let tomatoes wilt or dry out completely. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week.

* Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in hot weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

* It's not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers.

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