Dig In: Garden checklist for week of Sept. 1

Plant violas now and they’ll brighten the garden the rest of the year. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

September starts new planting season

Get out the shovel and trowel: September starts another season in the vegetable and flower garden.

Now is the time to plant cool weather-loving plants for fall and winter. The warm soil will get these seedlings off to a fast start.

Although September can get very hot (108 degrees is the Sacramento record), the month’s average high temperature is a comfortable 87 – perfect for many veggies and annuals.

While enjoying the end of your summer garden, it’s time to dig into early fall’s garden tasks:

* Keep harvesting tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant.

* Compost annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.

* Cultivate and add compost to the soil to replenish its nutrients for fall and winter vegetables and flowers.

* Plant onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.

* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.

* Sow seeds of California poppies, clarkia and African daisies.

* Transplant cool-weather annuals such as pansies, violas, fairy primroses, calendulas, stock and snapdragons.

* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials.

* Fertilize deciduous fruit trees.