Advice for the vegetable garden, orchard, roses -- and late-summer produce
Washed, cored and sliced, these Rugby tomato halves at this point can be frozen or, with maybe a little salt or olive oil added, roasted. Check out the tomato-saving tips in the Garden Basics podcast. Kathy Morrison
If you were able to attend the most recent Open Garden Day, you witnessed the flurry of activity by the UCCE master gardeners staffing the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. It's nearly autumn, which is an important transition time for backyard gardening.
"Farmer Fred" Hoffman, himself a lifetime master gardener, was on site for his popular "Garden Basics" podcast. He talked with some of the FOHC experts about how they're preparing the gardens for the cooler days ahead. Oh, and he talked to me, too, about one of my favorite topics: tomatoes, and what to do with them as the season winds down.
If you want to skip ahead to the podcast, you can find it here: https://gardenbasics.net/
Otherwise here's a quick recap of the master gardeners and their topics:
-- Gail Pothour, in the Vegetable Garden, discusses changing over the vegetable beds, including restoring the soil in advance of planting cool weather vegetables. She notes that the melon vines were being trimmed back, to focus the plants' energy on ripening the last melons of the season. She also adds a tip on growing a quick cover crop: buckwheat.
-- Quentyn Young, a project leader in the Orchard, talks about finishing up the summer pruning, the trees' changing water needs, and the maintenance of the citrus trees. He notes that the Orchard Team is going to try something new next year: growing bananas!
-- Anita Clevenger, who is an old-rose expert and a project leader in the Water-Efficient Landscape, discusses rose care and maintenance for this time of year. She covers deadheading, rose hips, pruning schedules, and the use of alfalfa pellets, among other topics.
My segment primarily concerned ways to save what's left of the tomato harvest. Hint: It helps to have some room in your freezer.
Separately, Fred talks to retired horticulture professor Debbie Flower about "When do pesticides expire?" It includes particular discussion about the shelf life of Bt (bacillus thuringiensis), a bacterium used to kill caterpillars.
Fred Hoffman's garden advice also is found in "Beyond Basics: The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter." In another look at fall garden preparation, he posed this question to master gardener Susan Muckey: If the worms in your vermiculture system could talk, what would they tell you this time of year? Susan's a vermicomposting specialist and she has a binful of excellent advice.
Just a note: The next Open Garden Day at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is Wednesday, Oct. 11, from 9 a.m. to noon, 11549 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks. It's a great opportunity to talk to the master gardeners in person.
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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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