Learn how to make your own 'garden gold'
Compost makes great mulch for plants already growing, and will improve the soil over time, too.
Kathy Morrison
One of the best ways to help your garden get through the heat of summer: Mulch.
This blanket of organic matter not only keeps roots cooler, but maintains moisture and feeds soil microbes.
Some of the best mulch? Well-aged compost – especially if made with your own kitchen scraps and garden waste.
Find out more, including how to make your own “garden gold,” during two free workshops offered by the Roseville Utility Exploration Center.
“Compost and Mulch” will be held on two Saturdays: Aug. 19 at the RUEC Tech Lab, 1501 Pleasant Grove Blvd., and repeated on Sept. 23 at the Maidu Community Center, 1550 Maidu Drive, Roseville. Each 90-minute class starts at 10 a.m.
Registration is required. Roseville’s workshops fill up quickly and seating is limited, so sign up now.
Here’s the class description: “Did you know yard debris and kitchen scraps can improve your soil? It’s true! Composting reduces waste sent to the landfill, helps you create your own free fertilizer, and saves water. Learn about bins, equipment, and materials used in a variety of composting styles.”
To sign up for “Compost and Mulch” or other free Roseville workshops: https://www.roseville.ca.us/residents/utility_exploration_center.
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Dig In: Garden Checklist
For week of Sept. 24:
This week our weather will be just right for fall gardening. What are you waiting for?
* Now is the time to plant for fall. The warm soil will get these veggies off to a fast start.
* Keep harvesting tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant. Tomatoes may ripen faster off the vine and sitting on the kitchen counter.
* 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.
* 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.
* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials. That includes bearded iris; if they haven’t bloomed in three years, it’s time to dig them up and divide their rhizomes.
* 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.
* Late September is ideal for sowing a new lawn or re-seeding bare spots.