September Veggie Gardening Tips Sacramento

September Veggie Gardening Tips Sacramento

(Zone 9b Sacramento, CA – Grow garlic and Harvest your Melons)

Garlic is one of the most powerful health foods you can grow, and September is the time to start growing it in Sacramento, CA. Sacramento is in Zone 9b, which means you can grow cold weather crops pretty much through the winter. If you plant your garlic now, you will have tons of delicious, health-boosting garlic ready to eat by early spring.

Grow garlic

Take a head of garlic and separate the cloves the day before planting. Plant the cloves 4 to 6 inches apart in an area that gets direct sunlight at least 6 hours a day. Keep the soil moist but not soaking wet, and fertilize well with a high nitrogen fertilizer or manure.

Harvest garlic when the lower leaves are starting to turn yellow.

Harvest melons

Now is the time to start harvesting your melons. It can be difficult to tell if melons are ready to harvest or not, especially considering that there are different signs for different kinds of melons. For cantaloupes, they are ready to harvest when the stem pulls off easily from the melon. With watermelons, it is about the sound: tap on them and harvest when the sound you hear is a dull thunk. With honeydew, smell the blossom end of the melon. You will be able to smell a strong, pleasant, melon-y smell when it is ripe.