Garden checklist: Spring ahead – and reset your clocks

The official start of spring may still be more than a week away, but it’s time to “spring ahead.” Reset your clocks – or you’ll be late Sunday.

Daylight saving time starts at 2 a.m. March 13. Remember to set your clocks ahead one hour before going to bed. We’ll be on daylight time until Nov. 6, when we “fall back” to standard time.

▪  Use this seasonal reminder to check household safety products. Change the batteries in your smoke alarms and other safety systems. Install a carbon monoxide monitor if you haven’t already.

▪  Sunday also marks a change to the city of Sacramento’s spring/summer schedule of water days with the addition of a weekday. Under drought-related restrictions, residents will be allowed to irrigate their gardens and wash cars two days a week, determined by address. Even-numbered addresses may use outdoor water on Wednesdays and Sundays. Odd-numbered addresses are limited to Tuesdays and Saturdays as water days. Either way, water use should be before 10 a.m. or after 7 p.m. to reduce evaporation.

Under this schedule, no outdoor water use is allowed on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

▪ In the vegetable garden, plant seed for beets, carrots, celeriac, celery, collards, endive, fennel, jicama, kale, leaf lettuce, mustard, peas, potatoes, radish, spinach, Swiss chard and turnips.

▪  In a greenhouse or indoors, start seed for summer and winter squash, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes. They’ll be ready to transplant in late April or May.

▪  For spring and summer flowers, plant seed for aster, cornflower, cosmos, larkspur, nasturium, nicotiana, periwinkle, portulaca, rudbeckia, salvia, snapdragon, verbena and zinnia.

▪  Feed roses and other spring-flowering shrubs, so they can get off to a fast start. Make sure to water plants before adding fertilizer to soil.

▪  Pull weeds now! Get them while they’re small and before they go to seed.

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Garden checklist: Spring ahead – and reset your clocks."