5 things to do in the garden this week:
Flowers. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Wave petunias, and late summer or early fall is an excellent time for planting them. This spring I planted a Shock Wave Violet F1 that had three tiny shoots and no flowers. Today, there are nearly 100 blooms tightly packed in a circle of flowers measuring around 7 inches tall and 30 inches wide. It received full sun all summer long and a few minutes of water, every other day, at 5 a.m. Both petunias and marigold, planted now, will continue to bloom until December.
Fruits. Strawberries are for fall planting. They are extremely rewarding for us since they flower and fruit throughout the year in this part of the world. I recommend the Sequoia variety, which Richard Mueller, a Granada Hills grower, would harvest daily, anywhere from a few fruit to a few boxes of fruit, depending on the season, throughout the year. He regularly worked horse manure into his beds, which comprised no more than a couple of hundred square feet, but that was all he did beyond watering the plants. He used the plants’ runners to continually propagate new offspring from the older plants; strawberry plants decline drastically in production after two or three years. One precaution to take when growing strawberries is to keep the fruit from touching the ground in order to prevent rot. Mueller did this by placing leaves under the ripening fruit. At San Gabriel Nursery (sgnursery.com), Sequoias growing in six-pack and 4” containers are currently available. You can also purchase Sequoia plants on Etsy.com.
Vegetables. Turnips are cousins of radishes but with a milder taste, having the flavors of radish and cabbage rolled into one. Turnips take longer to grow than radishes; in addition to being eaten raw when they are young, they may also be cooked, baked, or mashed, especially when they reach their mature size. In the manner of radishes, their leaves are also edible and may be used in salads or stir-fries. There are three popular types of radishes: Purple Top White Globe, the largest; Scarlet, the smallest; Hakurei, the sweetest. Purple Top White Globe is the best variety for cooking, while the other two are good for eating raw or cooked. Turnip seeds are ubiquitously available from Internet vendors.
Herbs. Now is the best time to plant fenugreek, although it will grow in our area throughout the year. The dried leaves and seeds have the aroma of maple syrup. Seeds are used in making artificial maple syrup and in flavoring certain beverages and tobaccos. Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) is used in Indian cuisine in curries and sauces. Fenugreek is a legume and literally means “Greek hay” as, like its clover relatives, it is suitable for animal fodder, for which it has traditionally been used in its Mediterranean habitat. Fenugreek seeds for planting are widely available from Internet vendors.
Solarization is the process of killing a lawn or an expanse of weeds by soaking it with a hose or a sprinkler system and then covering it with clear plastic, held down by rocks or bricks. The steam created under the plastic kills alll vegetation down to its roots, along with its seeds. Anything living in the top 6-12 inches of soil should die, but deeper rhizomes may not be affected. You will need at least six weeks to complete this task, so it would be advisable to do this as soon as possible before cooler temperatures are upon us.
Comments are closed.