Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 5

Grapevines can be pruned between now and March 1. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

This weather is normal; make the most of it

Welcome to a typical January in Sacramento! It may seem cold and damp, but this is actually average weather for us.

Our January high temperatures average 54 degrees with lows dipping down just enough under 40 to average 39. Normal January weather also tends to be wet with 3.6 inches of rain.

January also can be the coldest month of the year in Sacramento gardens with our greatest chance of frost. Be prepared!

Make the most of soft ground. This is a great time to transplant dormant shrubs or perennials. In local nurseries, it’s bare-root season with their best selection of roses and fruit trees.

What should be on your to-do list?

* Prune, prune, prune. Then, prune some more. Tackle roses, grapevines and deciduous trees.

* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.

* Apply horticultural oil to fruit trees soon after a rain to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.

Fight leaf curl in peach and nectarine trees by spraying with copper-based oil.

Be sure to remove any leaves and, as above, any "mummies" -- fruit that didn't

develop.

* This is also the time to spray a copper-based oil to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl.

* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.

* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.

* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.

* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.

* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.

* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.

* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladiolus for bloom from late spring into summer.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

cool-season annuals seeds Sacramento winter weather grapevines roses garden checklist fruit trees gardening pruning planting rainfall bulbs

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Food in My Back Yard Series

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of April 27

Once the clouds clear, get to work. Spring growth is in high gear.

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash. Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias. Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom. Late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.

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