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Sac Digs Gardening celebrates three years

Thank you, readers, for helping us grow!

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUN 1, 2021

Easter lilies bloom in late May when planted in the ground in Sacramento. (Photo: Debbie Arrington)

Happy birthday to us!

Today, Sacramento Digs Gardening turns 3 years old. We’ve published at least one post every day since June 1, 2018. This post is No. 1,106.

That’s a startling number – particularly for us content creators. Who knew there could be that much local gardening news?

But Kathy Morrison and I suspected as much when we set out on this pursuit. And that’s why we started Sacramento Digs Gardening – to provide up-to-date, local gardening news that local gardeners could use.

Because all good gardening is local.

When we launched Sac Digs Gardening, there was a sudden vacuum in local gardening information due to traditional-media cutbacks. This blog could be a lifeline to local readers for garden news and usable information about what they were experiencing in their own gardens. So, we started writing and posting.

Most of those posts started with observation. What did we see happening in our own gardens? What did it mean? Were other gardeners experiencing the same thing? Observation leads to inspiration. If we wondered why, likely other local gardeners would wonder, also.

Today’s photo is an example. It’s an Easter lily, blooming on Memorial Day weekend. Why? Because that’s when Easter lilies planted in the ground in Sacramento should bloom. (“Forcing” makes them bloom in time for Easter.) It also demonstrates that gift bulbs will rebloom outdoors.

(This particular lily also struck me as appropriate for this third birthday salute: Three blooms are fully open with another on the way, just as we have another post always coming.)

One story led to another and here we are, three years later.

Every one of those 1,106 stories is original, local and all about gardening from a Sacramento perspective. In our first summer, we broadened our scope to include weekly recipes featuring seasonal produce because one of the biggest joys of gardening is making the most of the harvest.

There have been challenges (especially a few technical glitches). Sac Digs Gardening survived the pandemic and helped many newbie gardeners get growing.

Now, the blog has more than 1,800 Facebook Followers. Hundreds of readers receive the nightly e-newsletter directly in their inboxes. (More are always welcome!)

After three years, we’ve built quite a body of work; it’s a reliable and ready resource for anyone to search.

Currently, we’re in the process of refining our website. Soon, we’ll be switching to a more reliable newsletter delivery program.

We also plan to introduce sponsorship possibilities, a donation button and other ways readers can support Sac Digs Gardening, so we can keep this two-woman effort going.

Our question: What do you want to read about?

Tell us what gardening-related topics you’d like us to explore or cover more. Email me directly at debarrington17@gmail.com .

Most of all, we’d like to thank the Sacramento gardening community and our readers for their support! If we didn’t have readers, we would have stopped a long time ago. You keep us writing, posting and sharing.

Sac Digs Gardening exists because Sacramento really does dig gardening. We’re looking forward to growing more in the year ahead.

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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