Sacramento County master gardeners present their annual celebration
Master gardeners Ruth Ostroff, in brimmed hat, and Maria Schiffler, at table, talk with visitors in the Herb Garden during Harvest Day 2024. All areas of the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center are well-staffed during Harvest Day, which is Aug. 2 this year. Kathy Morrison
July and summer events are just getting under way, but it's time to plan for Harvest Day. The UC Sacramento County master gardeners have been planning for it since February, after all.
Saturday, Aug. 2, is the date this year for the master gardeners' big summer event, to be held at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Harvest Day is a free one-day celebration of all things gardening. It includes speakers, demonstrations, vendors, education tables, calendar sales and much more.
Highlights of Harvest Day include three keynote speakers under the big tent. This year there are actually four, and they and their topics are:
-- Rose Loveall-Sale and Karey Windbiel-Rojas, 8:15 a.m., on "Looking to the Future: Plant Choice for a Changing Climate." Loveall-Sale is the owner of Morningsun Herb Farm in Solano County, and Windbiel-Rojas is the associate director for Urban and Community IPM and area urban IPM adviser with the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program.
-- Katie Low, 9:45 a.m., "Community Wildfire Preparedness Fundamentals." Low is the statewide coordinator for the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Fire Network.
-- Quentyn Young, 11 a.m., "Growing Avocados and Subtropical Fruit Trees in the Sacramento Area.” Young is a Sacramento master gardener, a garden designer and co-project leader of the Horticulture Center's orchard, plus runs his own landscape consulting and specialized pruning business.
Harvest Day also will feature 20-minute mini talks by master gardeners throughout the day. Topics range from pruning caneberries to using groundcovers as lawn alternatives.
The Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is at 11549 Fair Oaks Blvd., just south of the Fair Oaks Library and Madison Avenue.
For more on Harvest Day, go to https://ucanr.edu/site/uc-master-gardeners-sacramento-county/harvest-day
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Food in My Back Yard Series
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July 1: How to grow summer salad greens
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Garden Checklist for week of June 29
We're into our typical summer weather pattern now. Get chores, especially watering, done early in the morning while it's cool.
* 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. Plant Halloween pumpkins now.
* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.
* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.
* Don’t let tomato plants 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.
* Harvest tomatoes, squash, peppers and eggplant. Prompt picking will help keep plants producing.
* 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.
* Give vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.
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