Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Aug. 19

Feed your begonias now for more late summer and fall blooms. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Enjoy end of summer while focusing on fall

Mid-August garden chores focus on rejuvenation. Your fall garden starts now, but you still want to enjoy the final long days of summer.

Here's how to help your landscape get ready for autumn (and look good during the last of the summer heat):

* Deep water plants, especially large shrubs and trees. Check the soil visually -- with a long screwdriver, trowel or soil probe -- to make sure moisture is reaching 6 inches deep or more.

* Always water before feeding plants, even with liquid fertilizers. Roots need moisture to pick up nutrients. Otherwise, added fertilizer may do more harm than good.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Feed them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Cut off spent blooms from roses, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Pinch off dead flowers from perennials and annuals to lengthen their summer bloom and tidy up garden beds.

* Feed begonias, fuchsias, annuals and container plants to prompt another round of flowers.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

What to plant now:

* 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.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

fertilizing seeds gardening Sacramento garden chores begonias fall gardening summer gardens perennials watering

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Food in My Back Yard Series

June 17: Help pollinators help your garden

June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests

June 3: Make your own compost

May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?

May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days

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

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Garden Checklist for week of June 22

Mornings this first week of summer will remain comfortably cool – just right for gardening!

* Water early in the morning to cut down on evaporation. Check soil moisture and deep water trees and shrubs. Keep new transplants and veggies evenly moist. Deep water tomatoes to encourage deep roots.

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

* Plant basil to go with your tomatoes.

* Transplant summer annuals such as petunias, marigolds and zinnias. It’s also a good time to transplant perennial flowers including astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.

* Tie up vines and stake tall plants such as gladiolus and lilies. That gives their heavy flowers some support.

* Dig and divide crowded bulbs after the tops have died down.

* Feed summer flowers with a slow-release fertilizer.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch! This “blanket” keeps moisture in the soil longer and helps your plants cope during hot weather.

* Avoid pot “hot feet.” Place a 1-inch-thick board under container plants sitting on pavement. This little cushion helps insulate them from radiated heat.

* Thin grapes on the vine for bigger, better clusters later this summer.

* Cut back fruit-bearing canes on berries.

* Feed camellias, azaleas and other acid-loving plants. Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce heat stress.

* Cut back Shasta daisies after flowering to encourage a second bloom in the fall.

* Trim off dead flowers from rose bushes to keep them blooming through the summer. Roses also benefit from deep watering and feeding now. A top dressing of aged compost will keep them happy. It feeds as well as keeps roots moist.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushier plants with many more flowers in September.

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