Five things to do in the garden this week:
Fruit. Avocados ripen throughout the year due to the enormous variety of cultivars and you could easily have fruit to pick in all four seasons, depending on which varieties you select. For spring harvest, plant Hass and Pinkerton; for summer harvest, plant Reed and Gwen; for fall harvest, plant Zutano and Bacon; for winter harvest, plant Fuerte and Ettinger. Pruning should be done to control height and spread and should be done immediately after fruit harvest so that new flower-producing shoots can immediately begin to grow.
Vegetables. If you are growing onions from seed, trim the leaves — to a height of a few inches — as long as plants are in starter pots or containers. This will encourage quicker bulb development. Once onions are in the ground, do not trim leaves as long as they are standing up straight. However, if they should start to bend, cut them at the bend since this will promote better growth of the bulb.
Herbs. When harvesting mint, do not pick leaves randomly but cut back shoot terminals to a pair of leaves opposite one another. Wherever you cut, two new shoots will emerge. Cut pieces can either be put in your tea or stuck in fast-draining soil where they will root soon enough, as long as the soil is somewhat moist. Keep in mind that there are many types of mint, so that you can have an array of flavors on hand by planting some of their wide varieties, such as Banana, Chocolate, Berries and Cream, and Margarita mint. Find them through mail-order nurseries.
Flowers. For container growing, consider three rose varieties recommended by the National Gardening Bureau (ngb.org). The Nitty Gritty series grows on its own roots, so suckering should not be a problem. They only reach three feet tall with a mounding growth habit. Double blooms come in red, peach, pink, white, and yellow. Itsy Bitsy Peach is a compact miniature rose, with a mature height of two feet and flowers that change color from peach to orange. Grace N’ Grit roses grow up to five feet, so they will need larger containers than the above varieties. Their double blooms appear in red, white, pink bicolor, and yellow.
Soil. Carefully monitor the condition of container plants in hot weather. Some may need to be watered twice a day. Water slowly until the water level reaches the top of the container; at that point, you know all the tiny pores between soil particles are filled with water. You can also place your container after watering is finished in a bucket with a few inches of water. As the soil in your container dries, it will absorb the water in the bucket, so repeat watering on that day may not be necessary.