NEW Baked lemon-Dijon chicken thighs with herbs
NEW Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with this delicious side dish
Recipe: Mom’s chili and beans with grated cheese and onions
Recipe: Poppy seeds add texture to vegan snack cake
Recipe: Easy asparagus-mushroom bake with eggs and cheese.
Recipe: Bake them in ramekins for easy serving now or later
Recipe: Brussels sprouts-spinach slaw with dried cranberries
Recipe: Make bourbon apple butter for extra flavorful filling
Hearty winter warmer also is gluten-free
Recipe: Pantry ingredients add up to a filling meal
Just a bite's worth and easy to make
Lemon-persimmon muffins with lemon glaze
Easy snack for game days or binge-watching, too
Merry Christmas frittata with spinach and red pepper
Recipe: Roasting squash increases the depth of flavor
Recipe: Sweet potato latkes, served with applesauce and sour cream
Recipe: Zest and herb combination also works in muffins
Recipe: Mandarin mulled cider gets sweetness from fresh citrus
Recipe: Lime, cilantro and chilis flavor this easy dip
Recipe: Persimmon and/or apple crisp adjusts to fruit on hand
Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.
Sites We Like
Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 5
Take advantage of this break between storm systems to give your garden some much-needed TLC.
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* Apply horticultural oil to fruit trees soon after a rain to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranuculous and gladiolus for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.