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Dig In: Garden checklist for week of June 28

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUN 27, 2020

Bees are back to buzzing with the cooler weather. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Month ends with cooldown and 'normal' conditions

The breeze is back and with it cooler weather.

After five consecutive triple-digit days (including 104 degrees on Friday), Sacramento will see several days in the lows 90s or even the 80s -- in other words, normal for the last week in June, according to the National Weather Service. Sacramento's average high temperature for this time of year: 92 degrees.

What does this mean for your garden? Tomatoes, peppers, squash and other summer favorites will start setting fruit again. Tomatoes already on the vine will ripen normally. Bees will be active.

And so will gardeners; there's a lot to do!

* 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.

* Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in 90-degree weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

Zinnias add bright garden color.

*Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.

* Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

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

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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