Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of May 24

Sun and sunflowers: It's almost summer in Sacramento, but it surely will fee like it the next few days. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Prepare for hot days to come; check your irrigation

The heat is on! What would you expect on Memorial Day Weekend?
May goes out on a hot streak with a string of days in the high 90s. According to the National Weather Service, we may see 100 degrees on Tuesday or Wednesday before "cooling" down into the mid 90s.
Concentrate your gardening efforts this long weekend by making your garden as comfortable as possible and helping it cope with the heat to come.

* Check your irrigation. Are your drip emitters putting the water where it's needed? Are they all working? Are they delivering enough water for growing plants?
* Deep water trees, shrubs, perennials, berries and vegetables.
* Plant anything lately? It needs water, too. Be consistent with irrigation.
* Try to water in the early morning or evening; there's less evaporation and less waste.
* Mulch, mulch, mulch. Check for bare spots where ground is baking. But avoid mounding mulch around trunks or main stems; leave a 6- to 12-inch circle open to avoid crown rot.
* 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.
* Put your veggie garden on a regular diet. Set up a monthly feeding program, and keep track on your calendar. Make sure to water your garden before applying any fertilizer to prevent “burning” your plants.
* Are birds picking your fruit off trees before it’s ripe? Try hanging strips of aluminum foil on tree branches. The shiny, dangling strips help deter birds from making themselves at home.
* It's not too late to add a few more tomatoes, peppers or other summer favorites.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed or transplant sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

seeds Sacramento pests garden chores fruit trees deadheading irrigation gardening vegetables heat checklist flowers

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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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