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Sac Digs Gardening celebrates three years

Thank you, readers, for helping us grow!

3 blooms of white Easter lilies
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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Dig In: Garden Checklist

For week of Nov. 26:

Concentrate on helping your garden stay comfortable during these frosty nights – and clean up all those leaves!

* Irrigate frost-tender plants such as citrus in the late afternoon. That extra soil moisture increases temperatures around the plant a few degrees, just enough to prevent frost damage. The exception are succulents; too much water before frost can cause them to freeze.

* Cover sensitive plants before the sun goes down. Use cloth sheets or frost cloths, not plastic sheeting, to hold in warmth. Make sure to remove covers in the morning.

* Use fall leaves as mulch around shrubs and vegetables. Mulch acts as a blanket and keeps roots warmer.

* Stop dead-heading; let rose hips form on bushes to prompt dormancy.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs.

* Clean and sharpen garden tools before storing for the winter.

* Brighten the holidays with winter bloomers such as poinsettias, amaryllis, calendulas, Iceland poppies, pansies and primroses.

* Keep poinsettias in a sunny, warm location – and definitely indoors overnight. Water thoroughly. After the holidays, feed your plants monthly so they’ll bloom again next December.

* Rake and remove dead leaves and stems from dormant perennials.

* Plant spring bulbs. Don’t forget the tulips chilling in the refrigerator. Daffodils can be planted without pre-chilling.

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

* Plant trees and shrubs. They’ll benefit from fall and winter rains while establishing their roots.

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

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

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Bare-root season begins now. Plant bare-root berries, kiwifruit, grapes, artichokes, horseradish and rhubarb.

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