Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Japanese maples may be pruned now in order to shape them.

• Mottled leaves are often a sign of spider mites. Check for them with a hand lens or bring a leaf to your nursery in a plastic bag for identification and treatment options.

• Feed rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias with 0-10-10 fertilizer to encourage flowers for next spring.

• Keep flowers and vegetables in peak condition by giving them a midsummer feeding with a fertilizer that is high in phosphorus.

• Roses have more flowers all summer long than any other shrub. Plant them in a sunny location and feed monthly for continuous blooms.

Best Vegetables for Fall Growing

When the days grow shorter and the night air has that crisp chill of fall, it’s nice to be able to walk out to the garden and harvest a bunch of fresh broccoli, or a head of cabbage or lettuce. But to make this happen in Willits, you need to start planting the fall garden now, in the middle of summer.

We have a short growing season here, and when fall arrives, it is too late to start planting since cold weather generally comes on rapidly in November. Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower take 60 to 90 days to mature from transplant size, so it’s important to set plants out soon. They will grow vigorously in the warm summer weather. Then, when they begin to head up, the weather will be cooling down so that they can develop properly.

Though many of the same crops are planted for the fall as for the spring garden, fall vegetables will hold for harvest much longer without bolting to seed. Many crops, like Oriental greens, radicchio, leeks, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards and kale will actually get sweeter when touched by light frosts.

Transplant seedlings into well-prepared moist soil in the evening, so they have the cool night temperatures to settle in and minimize shock. In hot weather it is best to shelter newly transplanted seedlings for a few days with shade cloth or row covers.

You can start seeds of leaf lettuce, bok choy, spinach, Swiss chard and roquette or arugula now. These are fast-maturing crops that will be ready before frost. Although most seeds will germinate quickly in the warm summer soil, some, such as lettuce and spinach, will not germinate well if the soil temperature is above 85°F. Shading the soil with a board or a light mulch will keep the soil cooler, enhancing germination. Remove the temporary shade when you see sprouts emerging.

There are many kinds of lettuce to choose from on seed racks that will give you color and variety in your salads. Swiss chard comes in green, red or “rainbow”, a mixture of colored stalks.

Root crops, such as beets, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas and turnips, can be left in the ground through the fall. Green onions and radishes can also be planted for harvest in the fall.

It is important to rotate your crops from year to year. Do not plant the same crops in the same place that they were planted in the previous year because the soil will be weakened through continual loss of the same nutrients and the plants will also attract the same insects and diseases to that part of the garden.

A major benefit of a fall garden is that it gives you fresh vegetables long after most of your summer crops have been harvested and killed by the frost. So start your fall garden now to extend the productivity of your garden.

• Last call for bare root fruit trees. This is the most economical way to plant an orchard, so choose your trees now.

• Potatoes can be planted this month. Plant red, white, yellow and russet for a variety of uses and flavors.

• Mouth-watering strawberries should be planted now for delicious berries this summer. Plant them in a sunny, well-drained bed.

• For blue hydrangeas, apply aluminum sulfate around the plants this month. It’s also time to prune hydrangeas by removing old flower heads down to the first new leaves. Don’t prune stems which have no old flowers, and they will bloom first this summer.

Grow your own lettuce

An ever-expanding selection of lettuce varieties are available to home gardeners, adding variety, texture and color to the salad bowl.

Lettuce varieties can be divided into four groups: crisphead, butterhead, leaf and romaine. Each group has its own growth and taste characteristics.

Crisphead lettuce is probably the most familiar. It makes a tight, firm head of crisp, light-green leaves. In general, crisphead lettuce is not tolerant of hot weather, and bolts readily under hot summer conditions. For this reason, plus the long growing period required, it is the most difficult of the lettuces to grow in the home garden.

The butterhead types, also called Boston or bibb lettuce, have smaller, softer heads of loosely folded leaves. The outer leaves may be green or reddish with cream-colored inner leaves that have a buttery flavor. Buttercos varieties grow upright like a romaine but have a heart like a butterhead and waxy leaves.

Leaf lettuce has an open growth habit and does not form a tight head. Some cultivars are frilled and crinkled and others deeply lobed. Color ranges from light green to red and bronze. Leaf lettuce matures quickly and is the easiest to grow.

Romaine or cos lettuces form upright, cylindrical heads of tightly folded leaves. The plants may reach up to 10 inches in height. The outer leaves are medium green with greenish white inner leaves.

Lettuce is a cool-season vegetable and develops best quality when grown under cool, moist conditions. Lettuce seedlings will tolerate a light frost and do they best in spring and fall. Seeds of lettuce can be planted early in the spring or transplants can be set out starting in early March.

In the summer, lettuce prefers to get it’s sun in the morning and late afternoon, rather than the hottest midday sun, so you can plant it in the shade of taller plants.

Lettuce can be grown in a wide range of soils, but loose, fertile, sandy loam soils, with plenty of organic matter are best. Till in well-rotted manure or compost and top dress with alfalfa meal. The soil should be well-drained and moist, but not soggy.

Several successive plantings of lettuce will provide a continuous harvest throughout the growing season. You can set out plants and start seeds at the same time to get a jump on the season now. Space plants of leaf lettuce nine inches apart and head lettuce plants 12 inches apart.

All lettuce types should be harvested when full size but young and tender. Leaf lettuce, butterhead, buttercos or romaine types may be harvested by removing the outer leaves, or cutting the plant about an inch above the soil surface. A second harvest is often possible this way. Crisphead lettuce is picked when the center is firm.

Start your lettuce patch now and enjoy delicious fresh lettuce straight from your garden.

• Peach and plum trees are still available as bare-root trees, but only for a short while longer. Start your orchard now!

• Pansies and violas will fill your spring flower beds with their bright faces in many shades of blue, yellow, red, pink and purple.

• Deciduous Clematis vines can be cut back to about waist height, to encourage bushiness, more flowers and a nicer looking vine. Do this in late winter before the new growth starts.

• Fragrant daphne bushes perfume the air this month. Find a place for this attractive, evergreen shrub.

• Prune wisteria trees and vines by cutting out unwanted long runners and removing old seed pods. Don’t damage flower buds that are clustered at the end of short branches.

Get Ready to Garden!

After a long, wet winter, spring is in the air and it’s time to get out in the garden once again. It’s hard to beat the fresh flavor and high nutritional value of vegetables harvested directly from your own garden.

A good vegetable garden must have at least 6 hours of full sun each day. Eight to 10 hours a day is ideal. No amount of fertilizer, water, or care can replace needed sunshine. If you are limited for space or do not have a bright, sunny spot in the yard, then you can grow some vegetables in containers on a sunny patio or deck. Leaf-crops are about the only thing that will grow in limited sun.

March is the month when gardeners become eager to start planting. You can dig up and work your soil as soon as it is dry enough. When you turn your soil, add 1 to 2 inches of organic matter or compost, and mix it in as you dig the bed 8-12 inches deep.

The first things to go into the garden are perennial crops, like asparagus and strawberries. These plants are available at very reasonable prices during the “bare-root” season, when you can buy them without containers. This is very economical, and environmentally friendly as well.

Cool season plants like broccoli, cabbage, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard and spinach can be set out now from young starts. They grow best in cool weather and can take a light frost. Onions can also be planted early from young, growing plants.

When the soil warms up a bit, you can sow beet and carrot seeds directly into the soil. Spinach, however, will germinate best at 50°F soil temperature, so you can plant it any time. Peas should be sprouted inside and then planted out. They are likely to rot in the cold soil if planted directly right now.

Later this month, it will be time to plant potatoes. Seed potatoes are available now and savvy gardeners are choosing from over a dozen varieties. Be sure to pick some up while the selection is still good.

It is a good idea to keep a garden diary. Draw a map of your garden layout, since you will want to rotate plantings in next year’s garden. Record the vegetable planting dates, noting the varieties that you planted. Keep notes about weather and any problems that occur, and record harvest dates and some idea of quantities harvested. All of this information will help you improve your garden from year to year.

It’s time to get ready to garden!