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Dig In: Garden Checklist for week of Sept. 9

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED SEP 8, 2018

Keep harvesting those tomatoes. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Gardening’s ‘shoulder season’ offers late summer harvest, fall planting opportunities

Mid-September is gardening’s version of a “shoulder season,” the travel industry’s term for the period right before or after peak season. Shoulder season is a time packed with opportunities. For travelers, that means bargains. For gardeners, that means harvesting crops from one season while planting for the next.

With one foot in summer and the other in fall, gardeners need to balance those two sides of September. Here’s how:

* Keep harvesting tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant. For the most part, those summer crops are wrapping up, but some plants are still flowering and trying to set more fruit while the weather is warm. If that’s the case in your garden, give those late bloomers a boost of bone meal (after watering deeply). If the bees pollinate those flowers and October stays warm, you could have fresh-picked “summer” veggies for the holidays.

* 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. If you live in the current quarantine area for Oriental fruit fly (a zone that covers most of Sacramento), double bag in plastic that discarded fruit and call the Sacramento County agricultural office ( 916-875-6603 ) for disposal .

* 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.

* Sow seeds of California poppies, clarkia and African daisies.

* Transplant cool-weather annuals such as pansies, violas, fairy primroses, calendulas, stocks and snapdragons.

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CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

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Oriental fruit flies tomatoes composting gardening Sacramento vegetables gardn chores quarantine shoulder season backyard garden fertilizer

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Garden Checklist for week of April 21

This week there’s plenty to keep gardeners busy. With no rain in the immediate forecast, remember to irrigate any new transplants.

* Weed, weed, weed! Get them before they flower and go to seed.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Feed shrubs and trees with a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Mid to late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce seedlings. Choose varieties that mature quickly such as loose leaf.

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