Stay hydrated and give your plants a morning shower
Recipe: Peaches and cookies chill in a cool treat
Intense heat will challenge midsummer garden
Sign up now for Green Acres workshops at all locations
Free UC webinar on 'Natural Enemies & Beneficial Bugs'
Emphasis will be on food with return of festival; visit master gardeners at The Farm
Tips to help keep gardeners, gardens more comfortable in triple-digit weather
Bearded irises are a perfect addition to water-wise Sacramento gardens.
Recipe: Spinach-mushroom-pancetta frittata for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Make most of mild weather before triple-digit heat returns Friday, opening day of the State Fair.
Food, fun and Kokedama orchid workshop part of July 29 special event.
Make the most of your irrigation; Green Acres offers free workshops.
Program offers more choices to grow our urban forest while withstanding wild weather swings.
Colorful creations to come down Friday; on Saturday, Shepard Center holds annual meeting.
Mystery peppers cause headaches in Sacramento area, nationwide
Cool fruity appetizer for a hot summer night
Red-hot start could make July challenging
Find our recipes for summer's luscious produce all in one place
Healthy is better and it's less stressful, too
Celebrate Summer’s luscious flavors with more than five dozen seasonal recipes
Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 24
In between rainy episodes this week:
* Keep your gutters and storm drains cleared. Watch out for leaning trees or weakened branches; if you spot trouble, call an arborist.
* Remember to turn off the sprinklers or other irrigation. Be careful walking on or working with wet soil; it can compact easily.
* On rainy days, do some indoor gardening. Tend to houseplants. Sort seed packets. Start seed indoors for cool-season veggies and flowers.
* 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.
* Rake and compost leaves, but leave at least some healthy leaves in planting beds for nesting insects and foraging birds. But dispose of any diseased plant material. For eample, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* If you decide to use a living Christmas tree this year, keep it outside in a sunny location until Christmas week. This reduces stress on the young tree.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* After they bloom, chrysanthemums should be trimmed to 6 to 8 inches above the ground. If in pots, keep the mums in their containers until next spring. Then they can be planted in the ground, if desired, or repotted.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* 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 such as California poppies and plant spring bloomers such as as sweet peas, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* 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.