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Dig In: Garden checklist for week of June 30

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUN 29, 2019

Add some zinnias to your summer garden for splashes of color. They're great cutting flowers. too. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

Get ready for July and summer heat

Sacramento has a reputation for blazing hot summers, but July is traditionally warm, not stifling. High temperatures average 92 degrees with overnight lows just below 60.

This first week of July fits that pattern with typical temperatures and warm, dry days. In other words, it’s perfect for summer gardening.

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* After watering, fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.

* Put your tomatoes on a schedule. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week. Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more.

This zucchini should be picked today or tomorrow. Six to 8 inches tends to be

optimum size, but some gardeners like the monster ones.

* Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in July weather. Keep an eye on zucchini. The big ones sometimes hide.

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

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

* It's not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

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

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CHECKLIST FOR THE WEEK

Your weekly checklist of activities in the garden.

Keywords:

seeds tomatoes Sacramento garden chores zucchini deadheading squash weather gardening heat mulch summer annuals zinnias watering weeds

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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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