El Dorado County master gardeners offer free workshop with strategies for bountiful success
Tomato plants grow well in raised beds, a good solution for gardeners with less-than-ideal drainage or soil structure. Kathy Morrison
Poor drainage? Not enough room? Too much concrete?
Sometimes the best solution to creating a vegetable garden is to grow UP – plant those tomatoes and squash in raised beds and containers.
Summer vegetables and herbs grow very well in raised beds and many also will adapt to growing in pots, wine barrels or other containers. Learn tips for success during the in-person workshop, “Growing Veggies in Raised Beds & Other Containers.”
Set for 9 a.m. Saturday, June 29, this free three-hour class will be offered at Blackstone Community Center in El Dorado Hills. It’s open to the public; advance registration is encouraged. Find the registration link here: https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=42790.
UCCE Master Gardeners of El Dorado County will offer the best and most up-to-date advice about raised bed and contained gardening.
“Join Master Gardeners Mike Pavlick and Zack Dowell as they reveal the strategies for success with growing vegetables in raised beds and other containers,” say the organizers. “Mike will cover site location, raised bed and container options along with other methods that will allow anyone to grow veggies in a small backyard setting. Then, Zack will talk about how to grow vegetables including plant selection, planting times, soil preparation, seed planting techniques, fertilization and pest management.”
Blackstone Center is located at 1461 Blackstone Parkway, El Dorado Hills.
Questions? Email mgeldorado@ucanr.edu.
For more El Dorado County master gardener classes and events: https://mgeldorado.ucanr.edu/.
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Food in My Back Yard Series
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 April 20
Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!
* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.
* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, 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.
* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.
* 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.
* 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.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.
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