Sacramento Digs Gardening: Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Aug. 18

If your melons are close to ripening, be sure not to overwater them. In fact, you can cut back the water a bit.

This prevents mushy flesh and splitting. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Following toasty temperatures, show your garden some TLC

After that mid-week spike into triple digits, this weekend’s cooldown will feel particularly refreshing, for both people and plants.

Those high temperatures toasted blooms and hastened some annuals to an early demise. Perennials and bulbs died back quickly.

Take advantage of this cooler weather to show your garden some TLC.

Deadhead roses and trim off other spent flowers such as daisies and asters. Cut back daylily stems as well as other lilies as they brown.

Have your bearded irises stopped blooming or had fewer flowers this past spring? It’s time to divide and rejuvenate their beds. Irises need dividing every three or four years; August is ideal for this task. Dig in a little compost before replanting the rhizomes.

For irises staying in place, trim back their browned leaves to prepare for new growth.

Also in mid-August:

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that's now forming.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplant.

* Keep an eye on melons; they can ripen rapidly in this weather. Too much water can cause them to split.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Plant onions, leaf lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.

* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.

* Remember to water; morning or evening is best. Check the soil before pulling out the hose.

CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

fall vegetables fertilizing seeds tomatoes Sacramento garden chores summer produce citrus trees irrigation gardening temperatures melons irises summer gardens perennials

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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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