Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of June 28

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.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

fertilizing seeds Sacramento garden chores garden checklist summer weather weather gardening vegetables heat summer vegetables vegetable gardening checklist

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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