Hot August days and nights will stress gardens and gardeners
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Harvest peppers to keep the plants producing. These Gypsy
peppers grow at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. Notice the
thick straw mulch that conserves soil moisture. (Photo:
Kathy Morrison)
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The heat is back on! According to the National Weather Service, expect a string of triple-digit days, perhaps starting as soon as Sunday.
After a warm weekend, Sacramento’s forecast calls for 100 degrees-plus every day through at least Friday, peaking at 104 degrees on Tuesday. Overnight lows are warm, too, staying above 67 degrees.
Average for this week of August in Sacramento: High of 94 and low of 61.
Such heat is sure to stress plants -- and gardeners, too.
The good news? As hot as it will feel, we shouldn’t be flirting with any records. The hottest August day in Sacramento history: 112 degrees (set Aug. 16, 2020).
Get your chores done before 10 a.m. while the morning is still relatively cool. Water early and deeply. Remember to stay hydrated, too.
* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers.
* Squash and cucumbers refusing to set fruit? Help the pollinators, who tend not to come out in hot weather. Take a small paint brush, dip it into the center of a flower, twist slightly to gather pollen, then dip that pollen-covered brush into other flowers on the plant.
* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.
* Mulch can be your garden's best friend; it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.
* Pinch off dead flowers from perennials and annuals to lengthen their summer bloom.
* Deadhead roses. They’ll be back in bloom in six weeks.
* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot.
* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.
* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.
* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.
* Plant potatoes.
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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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