That's 1,825 posts and counting -- all related to local gardening
Blog co-founders Debbie Arrington and Kathy Morrison gained some early notoriety via a 2019 Sacramento Magazine article. Photo by Gabriel Teague/Courtesy of Sacramento Magazine
By Debbie Arrington and Kathy Morrison
Happy birthday to us! Sacramento Digs Gardening turns 5 years old today, June 1.
For us, this milestone represents more than 1,825 posts – at least one every day for five years. That’s commitment as well as a lot of gardening news. That total also illustrates the abundance of garden activities and interest in our area. Sacramento really does dig gardening. As Sacramento journalists, we knew it, and as Sacramento gardeners, we live it.
Gardening and cooking go hand in hand; we eat a lot of what we grow. So early in our evolution, we added seasonal recipes every Sunday, using what we harvested from our own gardens or found at farmers markets. Our garden-fresh recipes have become one of the most popular parts of our gardening blog. We recently compiled our Spring recipes into our first digital cookbook, “Taste Spring!”, with more seasonal e-cookbooks to come.
Why did we start Sacramento Digs Gardening? There was a need – in spring 2018 the Sacramento region suddenly lacked a one-stop source for local gardening information and events – so we filled it. (Remember: Nature abhors a vacuum.)
Like you, we’re active local gardeners, members of community gardens and local garden clubs or organizations. We write about what’s happening in our local gardening community – what our readers need to know right here, right now. That could be flower tours or plant sales, pest outbreaks or disease alerts, weather forecasts or water restrictions; it’s all local garden news.
Because – as "Farmer Fred" Hoffman says – all gardening is local.
That’s helped us grow in these five short years into a top source of garden information for Sacramento-area gardeners. More than 2,300 readers follow our blog on Facebook. Many receive our daily e-newsletter direct to their inboxes.
To each and every reader, thank you! We sincerely appreciate your interest and support.
Specifically, we want to thank local garden clubs – there are dozens! – and the UC Cooperative Extension master gardeners of Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties. These educational organizations are vital for our local gardening communities; they help make us all better gardeners.
Thank you to local nurseries and garden businesses. We appreciate all that you do and want to help you thrive. (After all, we’re customers.)
Thank you to the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Gardens, one of our region’s greatest resources of gardening inspiration (plus fantastic water-wise plants). Thank you to the Sacramento Tree Foundation; what would the City of Trees be without you?
A special shoutout here to Farmer Fred himself for his support and encouragement. When he was still on the radio locally, he brought us on as guests several times to talk gardening. Now he's a busy podcaster -- with a far-reaching audience -- and still includes us in his 'casts. (He also offers free advice on extending our reach. Thanks, Fred!)
We also must note and thank our most dedicated Facebook follower: the Elk Grove Community Garden, which since the beginning has shared links to so many of our blog posts.
Thank you also to the Regional Water Authority and its BeWaterSmart.info program. We’re honored to have you as our first sponsor. (And yes, we could use more sponsors so we can keep SDG growing.)
And a big, big thank you to CaliforniaLocal.com, our web host and media partner since last September. Mike, Chris, Eric and Sharan, you’ve helped us immensely in keeping SDG online and reaching more readers. Your patience with us has been remarkable, and we are especially grateful.
California Local also was instrumental in the creation of our e-cookbooks. More user-friendly features such as garden maps and growing guides are in the works.
If no one read Sacramento Digs Gardening, it would have withered away long ago. Reader enthusiasm feeds our blog and has kept us producing, right through the pandemic years and now after. If nobody cared, we wouldn’t do it.
But so many people obviously do care about gardening and garden activities in the Sacramento region; that’s how we stay motivated and focused. We care, too.
We’re looking forward to more milestones to come. Grow with us!
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Food in My Back Yard Series
May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success
April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of May 11
Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.
* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.
* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)
* Plant dahlia tubers.
* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.
* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.
* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.
* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.
* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.
* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.
* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.
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