Around the Yard

Things to do this week:

* Plant winter tomatoes. If you live in one of those extra-mild, winter-warm areas where frosts are virtually nonexistent, which includes much of the L.A. Basin and Orange County, you can plant tomatoes this month and have fruit in winter. Look for the tasty, indeterminate varieties ‘Champion’ and ‘Celebrity’ or the cherry tomato ‘Sweet 100’.

The plants won’t produce heavily, the fruit will be a trifle thick-skinned and not as tasty as usual, but at least you’ll have fresh tomatoes in November and December.

If frosts do threaten later on, cover the plants with clear plastic sheeting or a bedsheet. The usual advice is to take the covering off in the mornings, before the sun warms the air trapped under the plastic and overheats the plants, but one reader has suggested leaving it on to provide extra warmth. You might experiment.

* Prune berries. If you haven’t done so already, cut off all the blackberry canes that produced fruit this summer because they will not produce again. Canes that have been growing since last summer but haven’t borne fruit will produce next summer.

* Visit nurseries. Be sure to visit nurseries at this time of year to discover the plants that bloom in late summer or early fall, such as perennial asters and Japanese anemones, or shrubs such as Tibouchina grandiflora.

Plants in bloom now at nurseries will tend to bloom at the same time next year in your garden.