Posts Tagged: garden tasks
Garden Tasks for April
Paul McCollum published this blog post several years ago and it holds up well today.
April To-Do List for Zone 9
- If slugs and snails are decimating your plants, collect them in the evening, when you're most likely to spot them. They make good snacks for hungry chickens!Slugs.
- Plant pumpkins, summer squash, melons, and other vegetables that thrive in heat.
- Every 2 weeks from now until late summer, plant small blocks of bush beans and sweet corn to extend the harvest until frost.
- Thin fruits on fruit trees to increase their size and keep branches from breaking.
- Plant summer bedding plants, such as petunias, lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum), wax begonias, and impatiens.
- Sow seeds of nasturtiums, marigolds, portulaca, amaranth, salvias, vinca (Catharanthus roseus), sunflowers, and zinnias.
- Plant perennials like ornamental alliums, bellflowers (Campanula spp.), daisies, yarrow, daylilies, coreopsis, penstemon, perennial geraniums (Geranium spp.), iris, and statice.
April To-Do List for Zone 10
- Plant perennials so they can settle in before the summer heat arrives; give them plenty of water.Strawflowers.
- Plant heat-loving bedding plants, such as vinca (Catharanthus roseus), strawflowers (Helichrysum bracteatum), blanket flowers (Gaillardia spp.), and gazanias.
- Plant roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), amaranth, and Malabar spinach (Basella alba) now through August; make sure you give the Malabar spinach some shade and extra water.
- Try some tropical edibles: Buy malanga, gingerroot, and others at the market. Cut them into pieces at least 1⁄2 inch long, and plant. Harvest from October through December.
- Trellis tropical cucurbits (luffa, chayote, Tahitian squash, and so on) on a fence, and reap the rewards this fall.
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December in the Garden
To all the lovely people,
A few more days and it will officially be winter. I'm sure, like me, you have been enjoying the rain and the life it is bringing from the soil. It is not too late to sow cover crop but last month would have been better. If sowing cover crop is not your thing then just spreading 2-4” of mulch or a bale or two of straw (or better, alfalfa) over the garden and letting it remain in place until March will add humus and nutrients for the organisms in the soil to feed on and grow in number by the billions. By spring when you dig into your soil it will feel softer and easier to work and your seeds and plants will do much better. No matter if you grow or sheet your soil cover you will save water in the upcoming garden season.
Roses can begin being pruned (December 7 as one respected expert says). If you haven't already done so, spring blooming bulbs can be planted - it is not too late.
Please write if you have any garden questions.
Happy gardening and happy holidays.
Paul
- Apply lime-sulfur spray to peaches and nectarines to combat peach leaf curl.
- Apply a dormant oil spray to fruit trees to kill insects and eggs.
- Sow winter cover crops, including annual rye grass (Lolium multiflorum), fava beans (Vicia faba), oats, barley, pearl millet (Pennisetum americanum), or proso millet (Panicum miliaceum).
- At month's end, plant perennials, shrubs, and trees.
- Also at the end of the month, begin to prune established deciduous trees and shrubs to remove crossed and diseased branches and to open up the center to light and air.
- At the beginning of this month, start cold-loving veggies, such as Brussels sprouts and English peas.
- Most citrus fruits ripen now—remove and compost old fruit or use for slug traps.
- Feed mangoes a shot of compost tea as soon as flower spikes appear.
- If rainfall is scarce, provide at least 1 inch of water per week.
- If frost threatens, be prepared to protect plants with row covers (see PDF below for UC California Garden Web first and last frost dates).
- Keep harvesting beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, greens, onions, potatoes, radishes, and melons.
First and last frost dates in California.
October Garden Tasks--More Than Just Cleanup!
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Garden Jobs for Fall and Winter
By Brent McGhie, Butte County Master Gardener, October 4, 2013 As days shorten and temperatures...