Simple bouquets and elaborate floral arrangements are a snip away with a cutting garden, a designated area specifically planted with striking flowers and foliage. The payoff is a color blast for the dining table, kitchen island, even the home office.
Monet, van Gogh and Renoir put brush to canvas and created still-life paintings of flowers in a vase—a universal symbol of love, happiness and good vibes. A Harvard study found flowers in the home instill a sense of happiness and compassion toward others. The gift of a single flower lifts the darkest mood.
Spring is more than the Easter Bunny and cherry blossoms. As Earth rotates around the sun to fetch spring, there is a strange gravitational impulse to launch landscaping projects. Excavators, backhoe loaders and trenchers descend upon Sacramento neighborhoods to deliver the desired result: curb appeal.
Whether you are selling or staying, curb appeal adds value to homes and pride in home ownership. Consider how many people pass your home by walking, running, cycling or driving, compared to those invited inside. First impression is a lasting one.
In Sacramento’s sizzling real estate market, a stunning front yard will sell any home faster than one down the street with weeds, overgrown shrubs and worn paint. According to a study conducted by the National Association of Realtors and another by Michigan State University, a beautiful front yard will add 5 percent to 11 percent to home value.
Admit it, you’re longing for big, bodacious tomatoes.
We’re not talking about commercially grown processing tomatoes—those thick-skinned orbs that escape trucks and bounce down Interstate 5. Great tomatoes are home grown. And Sacramento’s long, warm growing season is ripe for the tastiest tomatoes on the planet.
Tomatoes are the most popular home garden vegetable in the country. The bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, featuring thick slabs of fresh-plucked tomato, is reason enough for the popularity. But BLTs aren’t the only perk.
Sharing gardens with our precious pets means coming to terms with diggers, chewers and poopers. Pets can be weapons of mass destruction. A dog chasing a squirrel has no regard for tulips. Cats don’t ask permission to use the vegetable garden as a restroom.
Ideally, you can mitigate destruction and keep furballs healthy and safe while the garden stays gorgeous and productive. Acceptance and forgiveness make a righteous path. But where you draw the line is a personal choice.
If 2020 seemed like a daily flat tire, begin the New Year with a nutritious edible garden and exercise. Gardening is Mother Nature’s Peloton. Who needs Jenny Craig when homegrown fresh produce is stuffed with healthy low-calorie options?
Growing the right foods may even save or extend your life. Fred Hoffman, Sacramento’s highest-profile gardener, confronted a life-threatening health crisis in 2012. He discovered he had Type 2 diabetes while preparing for quadruple-bypass heart surgery.
It was an abrupt life-or-death wakeup call for the producer/host of the “Garden Basics with Farmer Fred” podcast and radio programs, “The KFBK Garden Show” and “Get Growing with Farmer Fred” on Talk 650 KSTE.
Wacky gardening tools are lurking in dark corners of garages, kitchen drawers, yard sales and local stores. The tool arsenal is more than pricey pruners, digging forks and hand trowels.
One fine morning I stopped at a yard sale in East Sacramento. I spotted two old school metal mailboxes, the type with the red flag that signifies outgoing mail. Both were purchased for a grand total of $5. They are extremely useful for tool storage in a main garden area and will save countless trips back to the house, shed or garage for a needed tool. Mount them on a post for the true postal experience. Stow gloves, hand pruners, and other small gear and accessories.
