Plant talks, vendors, food and fun during annual gardening celebration
Last year's Harvest Day was busy in the Herb Garden and beyond. This year's event is Saturday, Aug. 5. Kathy Morrison
Wow, time for Harvest Day already? Yes, the summer celebration dubbed "a gardener's dream day" returns Saturday, Aug. 5, to the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center.
The Sacramento County master gardeners have been working for months to prepare the Horticulture Center and the planned programs for their showcase event, which will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Visitors can expect to find a wealth of expert gardening advice, plus dozens of educational displays, a collection of garden specialty vendors and several food vendors.
Three 45-minute keynote gardening presentations are scheduled in the speakers' tent:
-- 8:30 a.m. Debbie Flower & "Farmer Fred" Hoffman, "Tips for Saving Time, Money & Water in the Garden"
-- 9:45 a.m. Angela Laws, "Habitat Gardening for Pollinators in a Changing World"
-- 11 a.m. Pam Bone, "Home Reforestation: Correct Planting and Establishment of Landscape Trees"
"Mini talks" also are scheduled throughout the FOHC, covering such gardening topics as drip irrigation, worm composting, grape growing, and gardening with native plants.
The 2024 edition of the popular Gardening Guide & Calendar will make its sales debut during Harvest Day. The price this year will be $12.
The Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is located at 11549 Fair Oaks Blvd., just south of the Fair Oaks Library at Madison Avenue. Admission and parking are free.
The Horticulture Center will have plenty of natural shade and pop-ups, but master gardeners recommend that each visitor bring a hat.
For more information on the Sacramento County master gardeners and Harvest Day, go to https://sacmg.ucanr.edu/Harvest_Day/
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Garden Checklist for week of May 12
Get your gardening chores and irrigation done early in the day before temperatures rise.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions. This heat will cause leafy greens and onions to flower; pick them before they bolt.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.
* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Got fruit trees? If you haven't already done so, thin orchard fruit such as apples, peaches, pears, pluots and plums before they grow too heavy, breaking branches or even splitting the tree. Leave the largest fruit on the branch, culling the smaller ones, and allow for 5 to 6 inches (or a hand's worth) between each fruit.
* Thin grape bunches, again leaving about 6 inches between them. For the remaining bunches, prune off the "tail" end, about the bottom third of the bunch, so that the plant's energy is concentrated in the fruit closest to the branch.
* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
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