September Desert Garden Chores

Posted by Robert Dailey Sep 9, 2007

If you live in low desert regions, September is a good time to get some chores done.

Sterilize your soil. Put a sheet of clear (not black) plastic over the area you want to sterilize. Keep there for six weeks. This will kill most pathogens, weeds, fungi, nematodes, and other unwanted guests.

Make sure your beds are ready for fall planting.

Plant seeds for fall veggies now.

Put in transplants for fall crops.

Fertilize roses. As soon as it cools off a bit, begin your full regimen of fertilizing roses. If the leaves are turning a light green color with the veins of the leaves greener than the surrounding surface of the leaf, your roses could be suffering from iron chlorosis. Apply an iron supplement now.

Apply nitrogen fertilizer to fruit trees now to help set fruit size.

Make sure your lawn is fertilized (do this around the end of September) with a high nitrogen-content fertilizer.

Give your lawn at least one inch of water per week.

Applying fertilizer now to your landscape garden plants will help them with a last spurt of growth before cooler weather prevails. This will in turn help plants make more food to store in their root systems before they go into dormancy. The plants will use this stored food for a burst of growth in early spring.