Garden Jobs

Things to do this week:

* Leave those bulbs alone. Don’t be in a hurry to cut back fading bulbs. It’s a good idea to remove spent flowers to tidy them up a little and keep the bulbs from wasting energy making seed. But don’t cut off the foliage. Wait until leaves completely brown, so the bulbs have time to build up energy for next year. Long foliage can be cut back by half or tied in knots to get it out of the way.

Bulbs that are unlikely to return next year, such as tulips, should be dug out of the ground while they can still be found.

* Start summer veggies. You can begin the summer vegetable garden by planting seeds or transplants of beet, bean, carrot, corn, cucumber, leaf lettuce, pepper, pumpkin, radish, squash, sunflower and Swiss chard. Melons and tomatoes need the most warmth, so you may want to wait until May if you live near the ocean. Even then, you might find melons impossible to grow. Beans, on the other hand, do best planted right away so they miss the hottest, smoggiest days of summer.

* Go on mosquito patrol. If you’re being bitten by mosquitoes while working in the garden, check for stagnant, standing water (although it might be somewhere else in the neighborhood). Even a little in a flowerpot or saucer can breed quite a few mosquitoes in a week’s time. Make sure there is no standing water in the garden, unless it patrolled by fish, such as goldfish or mosquito fish, which eat the larva.