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Dig In: Garden checkllst for week of July 14

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUL 13, 2019

Harvest blackberries as they ripen. Check daily. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Enjoy some totally normal July days, watch your crops

This coming week will be just about as normal as it gets for July in Sacramento.

After a weekend spike in temperature to open the State Fair, highs will be back in the low 90s Monday through Friday, and likely into next weekend, too.

According to the National Weather Service, the average high for July is 92 degrees. Expect to see 91 or 92 at least three days this week, probably more.

What that means: It's perfect tomato weather. They'll ripen rapidly. So will squash, berries and stone fruit.

Tomatoes love this weather and
will ripen rapidly now.

*Harvest frequently; that encourages several varieties of tomatoes, squash, beans and peppers to bear more.

* Cut back berry canes after harvest. Remove the canes that bore fruit to encourage new growth.

* 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. Bone meal or other high-phosphate fertilizers stimulate more blooms and fruiting.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other shrubs or perennials as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow more leaves.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

* From seed, plant corn, beans, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers.

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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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