Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Sept. 8

Apple season is here! Be sure to pick up any fallen fruit and fertilize your deciduous fruit trees. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

This weather was made for gardening; time to get stuff done!

Take advantage of a cooldown.

The final weeks of summer are feeling a lot like fall, with high temperatures forecast in the mid 80s -- well below normal for this week in Sacramento.

Undoubtedly, you'll find plenty to do in your garden as plants are transitioning from hot summer to cool fall and winter.

Before you pull out those tomato plants and other summer favorites, notice if they're flowering and setting new fruit. Conditions for another round of tomatoes look ideal. If weather stays dry and mild, those bonus toms will be ripe in time for Thanksgiving.

* Weed, weed, weed! Lots of grasses and other invaders grew rapidly in August and may be now getting ready to bloom (if they haven't already). Pull them out before they have a chance to set and distribute seed.
* Compost annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.
* Cultivate and add compost to the soil to replenish its nutrients for fall and winter vegetables and flowers.
* Fertilize deciduous fruit trees.
* Pick up fallen fruit from apples and pears.
* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials.
* Dig up and divide daylilies as they complete their bloom cycle.
* Divide and transplant peonies that have become overcrowded. Replant with "eyes" about an inch below the soil surface.
* Plant onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.
* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

fall vegetables seeds peonies Sacramento daylilies garden chores fruit trees dig and divide summer cleanup fall planting gardening checklist bulbs compost weeds

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Food in My Back Yard Series

May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

Local News

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Sites We Like

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

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!