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August Gardening Tips

Garden Maintenance

  • Continue mulching to conserve soil moisture and control weeds.
  • Keep harvesting vegetables for continued production.
  • Do the final pruning of summer for fruit bushes.
  • Prune apricots to avoid Eutypa fungus.  Remove about 20% of this year's growth.
  • To prevent the spread of brown rot, clean up debris around fruit trees and pick up dropped fruit.
  • Control salt build-up on indoor plants; hose off the leaves and flush the soil with ample water.
  • Attach bands of corrugated cardboard around apple tree trunks to trap codling moth larvae.

Fertilize

  • Camellias, azaleas, and gardenias with chelated iron if there is yellowing between the leaf veins.
  • Indoor plants
  • Strawberries
  • Mature fruit trees (after picking fruit) with Nitrogen and water
  • Roses, six weeks after last application
  • Last feeding of the year for citrus and avocados
  • Chrysanthemums (until the buds start to open)
  • Begonias, fuchsias, annuals and container plants

Spray: Check the California Backyard Orchard website for current information.

  • Walnuts for husk fly
  • Pears and apples: check instructions to be sure pre-harvest intervals are strictly observed.

What to Plant in August

Flowers

  • Seed winter annuals this month.  Sow seeds of perennials in flats or pots for transplanting in October.  Try thrift, yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

Vegetables

  • In a cool location indoors, start seeds of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, bunching onion, and radicchio for over-wintering.
  • Direct seed oriental greens, beets, carrots, lettuce, turnips, Florence fennel, mustard, radish, rutabaga, spinach, and leeks.