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Mistakes gardeners are making now they'll pay for later this summer

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED MAY 21, 2020

It's difficult to pull plants you've grown from seed, but for these beans to thrive, they'll have to be thinned soon. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Gardeners can't rest because Mother Nature doesn't, either

May makes gardening seem easy. The plants are green and pretty, the flowers are sprouting and budding, the trees wave their fresh green leaves in the breeze. What a lovely month.

A mulch of newspaper and straw keeps the soil around

this tomato plant from drying out too quickly.

But the biggest mistake a gardener can make right now is to think that the garden, once planted, is done, "set," if you will.

Mother Nature works 24 hours a day, and humans don't. The garden is evolving every second. The humans have to be on their toes to keep up, especially in beautiful May.

Here are a few mistakes gardeners make now that they will regret later:

1. Not mulching. The heat's coming and those vegetable plants are going to be cooked (and the soil baked) without a good layer of leaves, straw, wood chips, shredded bark or whatever you've got. (I save newspaper all winter, then use that as the bottom layer, and pile straw on top.)

This garden would benefit from some mulch now, before the weather heats up.

2. Using hay as mulch instead of straw. There's a difference: Hay is green and full of seeds -- which will sprout in your well-watered garden and suck up the nutrients. Straw is yellow to gold and is hollow. It breaks down nicely later. ( Here's a great post from Debbie last year on mulch and other ways to keep tomatoes productive in heat.)

3. Not thinning sprouts. Awww, those little plants are so cute -- must I pull them out? The answer is yes, if you want to see a decent crop or keep your flowers from being too crowded to grow properly. Learn to be ruthless. Check the seed packet for advice on thinning. (A corollary to this is setting transplants too close together. Yes, that squash is going to overrun that pepper plant in a few weeks. Give them both some space.)

The zinnias are up! Now they should be thinned.

4. Not planting for pollinators. Any vegetable garden should include room for pollinator plants. The bees and other insects do the heavy lifting when it comes to creating the crops, especially tomatoes, squash and melons. Flowering herbs, zinnias, sunflowers and native plants such as salvia or buckwheat will attract pollinators, as well as hummingbirds. ( Here's a full post I wrote on enticing pollinators to the garden.)

5. Not checking the garden often enough. As noted, Mother Nature's a 24/7 worker. A gardener who doesn't "make the rounds" to observe the garden at least once a day is going to eventually find some rude surprises, from overgrown zucchini to collapsed alyssum, and everything in between. Master gardeners also tell me that many garden problems that clients bring them could have been caught and corrected much earlier in the plant's life. If only someone had noticed! So being a close observer of one's own garden is the best way to protect the plants, and the time already invested in them.

Note to newsletter subscribers: We're having issues again. With any luck, this one arrives on time, with Debbie's Wednesday post also attached.

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UCCE master gardeners Sacramento insects weather seedlings vegetable garden gardening integrated pest management vegetables mulch pollinators flowers

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Garden Checklist for week of May 12

Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. 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. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.

* 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.

* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.

* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier 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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