Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Back in print: Sacramento gets a weekly gardening column

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAR 18, 2019

Look for gardening news in Sacramento
News & Review, starting in April.
(Courtesy Sacramento News & Review)

Arrington to launch new home & garden column in News & Review

Here’s big news for readers: Sacramento is about to get a weekly home and garden column in a local newspaper – again.

And it’s going to be written by me.

After an 11-month hiatus, I’m going to be back in print. The Sacramento News & Review has invited me to write a weekly column for its new Home & Garden section. The section will start off small, but grow as advertising and interest support it, according to publisher Jeff vonKaenel.

The column is scheduled to launch in April, just in time for a very active gardening season.

I worked with SN&R editor Foon Rhee at The Sacramento Bee, my employer for nearly 20 years. After a decade as The Bee’s Home & Garden writer, I was downsized in May 2018. But I never stopped writing about gardening.

Sacramento Digs Gardening launched June 1 and has had a daily blog post ever since. That’s a lot of gardening news!

Sac Digs Gardening now has 1,050 Followers on Facebook ; thank you to every one! And no worries; Sac Digs Gardening will continue with daily gardening news, events and observations (plus recipes on Sundays) as well as the daily e-newsletter.

But not everybody is on Facebook or online. In the age of digital media, print newspapers continue to be a valuable resource and an important part of building community.

In Sacramento, we are a community of gardeners. About half of all Sacramentans list gardening as a hobby or something that they do on a regular basis. In the Farm-to-Fork Capital, growing food is a major pastime (as well as profession). This interest cuts across all sorts of demographics (even politics).

Thousands of newspaper readers will see this new Home & Garden section every week. It’s another chance to spread our love of gardening as well as share news and information.

Here’s another big plus: The News & Review is distributed free throughout the Sacramento area. It publishes on Thursdays, just in time for busy gardening weekends.

Look for my new column, starting in April. If you have any suggested topics, reach out to me directly at debarrington17@gmail.com .

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

gardening Jeff vonKaenel Sacramento News & Review Debbie Arrington gardening column farm to fork Foon Rhee

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

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

Local News

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Sites We Like

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.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!