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Sacramento sees surge in gardening interest

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUN 16, 2020

The Fremont Community Garden in Midtown Sacramento has a waiting list of more than 200 names.

(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Demand high for community plots; two new gardens coming soon

A garden is like a new puppy. With that pet comes responsibility to help it grow. Ignore it; bad things are going to happen.

Right now, there are a lot of new COVID-19 Victory Gardens out there as folks discover the joy of doing something constructive outdoors during a pandemic. And like inexperienced pet parents, these newbie gardeners have a lot to learn, including patience and coping with unforeseen circumstances.

Bill Maynard, who is in charge of the City of Sacramento's network of community gardens, recently returned to his duties full-time after being sidelined by the shutdown for about 10 weeks. He compared the current surge in interest to that of 2008 at the beginning of the Great Recession. During hard times, vegetable gardening can feed a family while saving money.

People need food, but often, have no time or expertise to grow their own. The pandemic gave them time to try.

All they need is space. That's where the community gardens come in.

"There's huge demand," Maynard said. "I've been getting a lot of calls. We're seeing another spike in vegetable gardening. People are at home, they want access to food."

Sacramento's 18 city-run community gardens are almost all at capacity. The waiting list for Midtown’s Fremont Community Garden, which has 55 plots, is more than 200-people long.

"I've been getting three calls a day (asking for plots)," Maynard said. "People want to grow."

Artichokes grow well at the Fremont garden. Growing food is more
popular than ever, but it does require a time commitment.

To help meet local demand, Sacramento plans to add two more community gardens within the next nine months. Both projects have been in the works long before the pandemic. The Northwest Natomas garden is scheduled to open in August, just in time for fall planting. Another garden is expected to be ready in spring 2021.

Will these new COVID gardeners keep gardening when life returns to "normal"? They need nurturing, and so do their gardens.

"A garden is a lifestyle change," Maynard said. "It's a new commitment to them. You can't go out of town for four months this summer, if you could, and expect it to be OK when you get back."

Treat your garden "like a new puppy," he added. "You've got to play with it, water it, feed it, love it. Or it won't do very well."

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Keywords:

Sacramento garden chores Fremont Community Garden winter crops winter gardens community garden vegetable garden gardening vegetables Victory Garden garden advice vegetable gardens Bill Maynard

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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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