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Dig In: Garden checklist for week of July 7



Pick your tomatoes and other produce promptly -- it will encourage the plants
to keep producing. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)
Summer harvest time begins; enjoy mild weather



Enjoy a cool-down Sunday and Monday before high temperatures bounce back into the 90s. By Friday, Sacramento will see 98 degrees again – just in time for opening day at the State Fair.

According to the National Weather Service, dry and mostly sunny days are ahead. After a couple days in the mid-90s, afternoons will peak in the 80s for at least three days. (Tuesday’s forecast is for a high of only 83 degrees.) Then, the heat will come back on.

What else would you expect during the State Fair?

Meanwhile, check your garden often. It’s enjoying this weather, too.

* Harvest tomatoes, squash, peppers and eggplant. Prompt picking will help keep plants producing.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers 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.

* Feed vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting.

Zinnias add bright spots of color to the summer
garden.
* One good thing about hot days: Most lawns stop growing when temperatures top 95 degrees. Keep mower blades set on high.

* Take advantage of good planting weather. Transplant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* 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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